Revenge of the Queen
by manic-intent
Summary: Hellblazer/BtVS/FR crossover. John Constantine runs into the Scooby Gang, becoming Willow's mentor for magic. Willow accidentally casts a spell that induces someone's love. Buffy decides to prove she doesn't have a one-track attitude to Spike. S/B.
1. Prologue

Title: Revenge of the Queen 

Author: Anya al'Nighter 

Email: anyasy@singnet.com.sg 

Rating: PG-13 

Spoilers: This is somewhere in Season 5 of Buffy, but there's nothing about Glorificus, or Tara, or Riley, since I hate them. Think of this as a relatively AU place, as crossovers are wont to be. Spoilers of Dawn being the Key, and also about Connor etc... As to Hellblazer - references to Constantine's past. Forgotten Realms: no spoilers, since in canon Nalfein is died in the opening chapters to the Dark Elf Trilogy. 

Note: I would like to state that my penname 'Anya' has no inference or relationship to Buffy's Anya at all. Took the name before I began seriously watching the show. 

Disclaimer:

The usual – John Constantine is from the series Hellblazer, a comic for 'mature readers', i.e. it contains a lot of violence and sex, especially under the current writer, whom I dislike. Am waiting with bated breath for Mike Carey's turn on Hellblazer – which would take place for a few issues next year. It's quite amusing that we seem to judge maturity by the ability to handle such scenes, instead of the ability to wield ones' imagination and judgement, eh? But I digress (that's a title of a book I saw in Borders). I'm going to refer to him as Constantine, since calling him 'John' seemed rather weird to me.

Buffy, Spike, and the rest of the Scooby Gang are owned by Joss Whedon, who I think is on crack after seeing a few episodes of Season 5, Mutant Enemy (the deformed demon going 'rrr! Rrrr!' is so cute) and whatever else. I wish I owned Spike, but nevermind. 

Nalfein, Lloth and the Forgotten Realms belong to TSR. As far as I'm concerned, they can keep the characters, but if they're auctioning them off, I want Zaknafein and Jarlaxle. Then maybe Nalfein, and perhaps Kimmuriel. Drow bishies.

The rating for the story will start at PG-13, though, with the advent of the new year where I hit Junior College year two and all the work and exams and A'levels that it entails, John's language is likely to deteriorate further. I will attempt to imitate his accent in the books – he adores using the f-word – but don't kill me if it doesn't sound very authentic. Basically, just think 'imitation Cockney English'. JC is a Liverpudlian. 

Descriptions in the story may have repeated themselves in earlier stories… because I am sending this to several lists, of which some people might not be familiar with the storylines, Constantine, or the Forgotten realms. I'm assuming everyone here knows what Buffy is about. Bear with me, and also with the language… it's going to take a long, long time for Tolkien's 'High Fantasy' thing to get out of my normal style. 

The last warning is: As usual, it's very likely that characters will go out of character. I can't keep to rigid personalities.

These events take place immediately after 'Hollow Years'. Enjoy the story if you will.

--

Prologue

After some argument about exactly where the new arrival to Sunnydale was to take his shower and give his little talk, Buffy agreed to allow him to use her house. Though that would put her sister Dawn in danger if it turned out that the man John Constantine had hostile intentions, the Christmas party was supposed to be at her house this year, and she was determined that Hellmouth visit or no, it would still _be_ there. 

To her annoyance, Spike insisted on coming along, his reason being that he'd killed a Constantine before, and chip or not, if this one tried to hurt the Nibblet (his somewhat grotesque nickname for Dawn), he'd add another one to his tally. To this threat Constantine had simply smiled, something that managed to combine cold derision and insolent, sardonic insouciance. Buffy idly wondered if Constantine could teach her how to do that – it would be a fine answer to some of Spike's jibes during their joint patrols – but she guessed that the smile was probably a product of Constantine's disastrous lifestyle. 

At least the huge panther that had been with Constantine had vanished into smoke – he'd said something about it returning to its home for a bit of a rest, and off it'd gone. Buffy was relieved – she doubted that Spike's car could hold that much more. 

In the trip to her house on Revello Drive, both Willow and Giles seemed to be slightly in awe of Constantine, and plied him with questions on his life, his magic, and why he had come out of the Hellmouth. Constantine had, at first, answered with monosyllabic replies, then finally subsided to an apathetic silence punctuated by puffs on his cigarette. Soon, the car filled with smoke, and everyone, with the exception of Spike, was coughing.

"Put it out, or I'm going to open a window!" Buffy growled at Constantine. She was jammed with Anya in the front seat, since the back seat had to take one more passenger. "There's not enough air in here as it is!" 

Constantine shrugged at this, as if he didn't particularly care that everyone was about to asphyxiate. Something else seemed to be weighing on his mind.

"Oy, not a window!" Spike yelped. "The sun's still up, and I ain't gonna spend Christmas as a pile of dust!"

Somehow they managed to get the cigarette out and discreetly clear the air without letting in enough light to give Spike a bad case of spontaneous combustion, and they made the rest of the trip back to the house without much incident, though at one bit Buffy was wondering if Giles was soon going to strangle Constantine for ignoring his questions. She had the feeling that Constantine was doing this on purpose – perhaps for malicious amusement, or perhaps out of mischief, to see how much it'd take for Giles to snap. Buffy knew Giles didn't particularly enjoy being disregarded.

She wondered if Giles' nickname, 'Ripper', had anything to do with his temper… and the mental images that ensued put her in enough of a good humor to ignore the lingering miasma of cigarette smoke.

**

Nalfein Do'Urden of the dark elven city of Menzoberranzan, from the world of Toril far away from these mortal lands ruled wholly by men, got wearily to his feet, using his beloved staff for support. His face seemed ageless, frozen in his prime – one got the sense that, like the Night whose stars gleamed like myriad eyes that looked over the innumerable worlds, he was, at the same time, both young and old. Youth in the taunt, soft skin that was in a deep hue of black, like the shadows behind bright light, in the silky, snow-white hair caught in a ring of the silvery metal known by the dubious name of 'Fool's Gold'. The ring was as wide as a finger, but was in thickness a third of its width, and had no decoration or inscription. From it the rest of the dark elf's long white hair streamed, revealing his ears that tapered to a slender point, hair that past his slender shoulders to rest high on his back. 

He seemed old in that in his eyes was knowledge that could only be gained by one who had seen much, and found much, and had not liked all that he had done or all that had been done to him. There were no laugh lines on his handsome face, and his keen eyes, a dark blue in hue, were hard and cold, soft lips set in a hard line, though of inner pain or determination it was hard to divine.

He had discarded his rich, heavy ceremonial robes that would have, in his city, marked him as a Mage Lord – the rank that all the mages of the dark elves, also known as drow or _Ilythiiri_ – aspired to, for more comfortable and more useful garb. Dressed in flowing robes that seemed to be knitted of shadows, if he drew his hood low over his face, only a bright light shone directly on him would reveal his presence. However, the pleasure he normally enjoyed whenever he put on these robes was rather marred by a feeling of unknown confusion in his mind.

Nalfein found it disturbing that although he had reached the goal he had set for himself centuries ago when he had first entered Sorcere, the school of Mages in Menzoberranzan, he was discontent, as though he had lost or had never possessed something precious all his days and had only just been given an inkling of its identity.

It could not have been power, for now he had nearly as much power as males in a Lloth-worshipping, female-dominated dark elf city could aspire to, with the exception, perhaps, of the Arch-Mage. Neither could it have been the desire for newer spells, though he still experimented with magic, he had reached the point in which he was in control and it was the servant – though the desire to wield it was always there, it no longer consumed him. 

Nalfein had initially put it down to the 'mage's complaint', as the discontent was known – the feeling of dissatisfaction a male of power invariably had when he looked long and deep in the city and knew without a doubt that even though he may have invested centuries to climb to this spot, he was still lower than the lowest female priestess.

However, the feeling of discontent had grown even here – so far away from his Goddess that he felt that he could not feel her presence, a presence that was nearly palpable whenever he neared priestesses. Perhaps it was chafing at being sent on an errand in a world that was unfamiliar and hostile – for daylight was coming, and the burning sun would be terrible to behold… or perhaps not. Nalfein, never one to dwell too long on disquieting thoughts, cast it aside into his mind and tried to concentrate on what he had to do.

His sisters, the priestesses of his House, led by their Matron Malice, had with Lloth's direction opened a gateway known as a Hellmouth in their chapel, allowing him to step forth through the Hellmouth of this world. Equipped with the necessary components for him to do what he had been commanded to do when the time came – save one: Nalfein had been told to find something called 'The Key', and was warned that it was energy, and could have taken any shape. On his neck hung a short chain of white gold, with the pendant of a ruby spider that would glow in the presence of the Key. He found the pendant hateful and wished to be rid of it, but practicality bid him not to try. There would be no way he could find his way back to Menzoberranzan if he did not succeed.

Or did he wish to go back? 

Nalfein hissed at such thoughts and angrily swept forward, his robes appearing to whisper over the ground like fast-flowing water, and the pack of components and written instructions rose up from the ground and bobbed after him like a docile dog. Concealed in the intricate folds of his robes were a dagger, dwarven-forged and ensorcelled to resist blunting, as well as devices he had forged, his spell book and some of his favorite wands. Though he usually would only turn to them if hard-put, for his faith lay in his staff that he held tightly in his right hand, as if for reassurance – mage-carved from black obsidian bound to adamantite, the steel of the dark elves. 

It was of a stylized dragon that had climbed onto a spear – the proud, tapering head with its graceful horns and lazrael-tear eyes, the mouth set with sharp teeth that held a circular plaque of gray-green jade imbued, amongst other things, with a dweomer of lasting. This dweomer he had extended to all his current possessions – since he had no idea how long he'd take on this particular errand, it would not do for his things to decay as they would, normally, out of the Underdark. The dragon's wings were flattened to its body, though giving the impression of imminent flight – the sails made of some black metal hammered paper-thin. 

Each individual scale on the body could be seen, and the wicked talons on the claws, forelegs clinging on to the spear-blade, a rare type of translucent blue opal, the inside of which a small tongue of dark flame danced in the centre, the only indication of the amount of magic that he stored in it. The dragon's tail was long and curled down the rest of the length of the 'spear's' shaft, of one of the alloys of adamantite that made it light to wield, in a place where there was no wood with which to make such shafts. On this shaft Nalfein had carefully carved all his names in the High dark elven language – binding the staff to him – and then many runes of power, not all of them of the _Ilythiiri_, as many as he felt the staff could take.

Of this staff Nalfein was dearly, desperately fond of, and sometimes others had seen him murmuring to it or stroking the dragon's head with much affection. It was an unsettling sight at all times, and there had been rumors spread that the new Mage Lord's staff was sentient. Like most rumors, these had not only spread but had grown quite out of hand, such that popular theory swerved between the idea that the Spear of the Dragon – as the staff was now called, or _Luth'ol d'l'Tagnik'zur _was an actual dragon that Nalfein had changed to do his bidding. Nalfein, with a true dark elf's penchant for chaos and prevarication, sometimes ignored these rumors or denied them with such heat that most who heard him were secretly convinced of their truth. The actual truth, of course, was only known to Nalfein himself.

"Where to now?" Nalfein asked, as he walked with a cat's grace up a flight of steps – though exactly who, or what he was asking, wasn't particularly apparent. The mage noted that the dust on the steps were marked with many footprints – relatively recent ones, though not too fresh, and the flame inside the opal brightened as if in preparation for combat. 

Nalfein realized that he was inside a building, a habitation built by humans, judging by the uncouth lines and lack of graceful structure, and though he ascertained that it was empty, he knew better than to stay. This place was known to creatures already, and there was the chance that they would come back – and it did not look as though it would keep out the light of the Sun very well. 

Quietly he ventured out into the unfamiliar world – onto a road paved with some dark substance – and suddenly to his right was a roar of rumbling sound like the battle-cry of some great beast – and the painful, blinding glare of two white circles, perhaps the beast's eyes… 

**

"How long as he been up there?" Dawn grumbled, slouched on the sofa. "I'm _hungry_."

"It's lucky we managed to cook extra," Buffy said from somewhere in the kitchen where Anya and Willow were helping her. "Or you'd have not enough to eat anyway."

"Well, considering what the place he came out from smelled like, I think he should bathe as much as possible," Willow said judiciously, emerging from the kitchen to help lay the dining table. "Trust me on this."

"He talks like you," Dawn turned to look at Spike. The blond vampire was sitting quietly on another sofa – Dawn had seen her sister's darkening eyes when he had sat next to her – as had Spike, who had immediately changed position, though a hurt expression remained that Buffy had ignored. Right now he blinked after a few seconds had passed when he registered that she was talking to him, and with some effort pulled his eyes away from Buffy.

"Yeah? That's to be expected," Spike shrugged. "Since we're both Brits."

"Giles doesn't do it."

"Thank God for little mercies… " Giles muttered, not even looking up from the pile of books on the coffee table which Xander was helping him with. "There _should_ be something in these about it somewhere… " 

"There's different kinds of British, Nibblet," Spike said expansively, ignoring the cryptic words Giles was uttering. "One type's Ripper 'ere. Stiff upper lip, code of honor and mannerisms so thick you could taste it. Public-school accent, uptight personality – maybe it's to do with… "

"That's quite enough, Spike," Giles adjusted his glasses as he glared at the vampire, as if he knew what Spike was to say next. Spike smirked, his goal of irritating someone - the Watcher, in this case - achieved.

**

Upstairs, Constantine had just finished his last bath, and slowly dried himself while eyeing his travel-stained clothes with distaste. Though at least now he smelled of hot water and soap instead of… what he had been like when he'd first started. The last leg of the journey up to this Hellmouth had been particularly disgusting, and Constantine wondered vaguely if it was because of some private joke on the new leader's part, or because said leader didn't really know how to work the gates yet. 

He rather suspected it was the former. 

"Meri, can you clean up the clothes again?" he muttered. There was an answering chuckle in his head, high and bird-like, then the wrinkles in his clothes ironed out, the stains disappeared, and more importantly, the smell went as well. He dressed quickly, nearly slipping on the ground of the bathroom, and managed to get out without falling over. The little bit of magic that Meri – or Meridian, a strange blue phoenix of power that recently started sharing his essence, or whatever she called it – did was more tiring that he'd thought. On top of the manifestation earlier when he was trying to struggle out of the Hellmouth and needed some help. He devoutly wished to just lie down and sleep, but had a feeling that those waiting downstairs would soon become impatient.

He hung his tan-brown trenchcoat on the door, then tried to comb his short blond hair into some measure of tidiness with his fingers before going down the stairs. The vampire Spike saw him first, and smirked. "The burnin' wonder is down at last. Thought you were bent on washin' off your skin."

Constantine wasn't paying attention. The smell of food from the kitchen was getting overwhelming, and he was distinctly aware that he had missed lunch. Glancing around the room, he – _food _-sat down on the long sofa next to - _food - _the girl Dawn, and tried to take his mind off food by watching – _food_ – Giles and Xander look through the books. Food.

"Are you a wizard?" Dawn asked him suddenly. 

He glanced at her and grinned. "Depends on what you think is a wizard, luv."

"Dawn," Spike spoke up, and his voice was deadly serious. "Don't get involved with _any _Constantine magically… or at all, if you can help it."

"I was only _talking_ to him," Dawn protested, "And trying to be polite."

"Eh, pay attention to him, luv," Constantine smiled a little maliciously at the vampire. "Words to live by, wot 'e said. At the same time, you might like to consider bein' a little less cozy with summat that could break your neck like a matchstick." 

"That's what I tell her," Buffy said from the kitchen.

Spike scowled at Constantine, whose suspicions that the vampire more than liked the Slayer were confirmed by the sharp look of hurt that passed over his face when Buffy had spoken, but Dawn spoke up in his defense quickly. "Spike won't do that, Buffy, even if he could, and you know it." 

"You'd better be rid of the Constantine – and soon," Spike muttered. "His friends all seem to die. It's probably catchin'."

For some reason, this comment managed to irritate Constantine, even though he had admitted it to himself several times. A rather perverse side of him sought to annoy the vampire in the worst way he knew, and so Constantine got up and went to the kitchen, where he proceeded to endear himself to the three girls with outrageous flatteries, getting into everyone's way like a puppy and barely-concealed attempts to get at the food. Women seemed to like rascals, because though Willow hit him with a hand-towel after he nicked his third sausage, there weren't many physical attempts to eject him until Buffy, realizing that Constantine was sidling closer to the turkey, chased him out with a fork.

Constantine sat back onto the sofa and shared the pieces of ham he'd stolen when Anya wasn't looking with Dawn, and gained another friend. He winked at the vampire, who had retreated into his chair in such a way that his blue eyes were veiled in shadow. If Spike had been looking at him, he offered no response other than a fleeting twist of his lips that seemed to be of pain, or of grim understanding. 

: _You know, I'm not sure if the 'bastard' side of you is well balanced yet, _: Meri's voice chirped in his mind, dry and amused. : _That was very evil of you._ :

: _I didn't do anythin', _: Constantine replied mildly in his mind. : _Only bein' friendly._ :

: _You knew Spike really wants to be accepted by these people – especially by Buffy. You had to rub his nose in the fact that they'd hardly be willing to accept him as he is… that though you are human and your rep isn't exactly clean, you managed to win over the girls in a short time. Including Buffy, I might add. _:

: _I know. What can I do? Women fancy me. _: John realized he rather enjoyed being nasty. : _Why, you don't like me anymore, luv? _:

: _Heh… but really, you should…_ :

"Dinner's ready!" Willow called from the table, and Constantine immediately ignored whatever else Meri had been trying to say. 

--

Notes and References:

__

Women fancy me: That was a 'sort of' stolen quote from the Vertigo Secret Files on John Constantine. Heh. He might smoke, be an utter, selfish bastard at times, but I like him anyway. 

__

Earlier story: The epilogue of Hollow Years… in the Forgotten Realms section of Fanfiction.net, will have the description of Constantine trying to get out of the Hellmouth. The rest of Hollow Years does not feature Buffy and the Scooby Gang.


	2. Metal beasts and Vampires

Chapter 1

Metal beasts and vampires

"So, spill," Buffy flounced down onto the sofa opposite the one where Constantine was seated, sated from the meal and, for the moment, content enough to be forthcoming. Constantine sat next to Willow and Dawn, Spike continued to sit by himself; Giles sat next to Buffy and on the last single-seat Anya sat on Xander's lap. 

"You don't have beer?" Constantine asked hopefully. "Pint of Guinness or two would be a help, luv."

"You've used my shower and eaten my food… "

"Yeah, yeah. Then we'd hold a pow-wow next and… " Constantine grinned when everyone stared at him. "Right. Ask your questions then, luv."

"Why were you coming out of the Hellmouth?" Buffy asked. 

"Well, I had to get home _somehow_, and since I was already in Hell… "  
"You were in Hell why?" Buffy cut in.

"Summat took half my soul, I chased him over half a continent, 'e ran to Hell and pulled me in along with me friends," Constantine counted off the events on his fingers as though he were just remembering things to do. "We walked around, solved some stupid puzzles, and ran into the old administration – the First of the Fallen. 'e doesn't like me… "

"Understatement," Spike muttered from his seat.

"So 'e threatened to kill me – then 'e'd get my soul," Constantine continued, ignoring the vampire. "Turned out that he'd put me in the bit of Hell where things could be killed, so I did him in, chose Hell a new ruler, who then agreed to get me back home through one of the Hellmouths. That should be it." He smirked at the others. "Now, about that beer…"

"There's no beer in the house," Buffy told him, still struggling, like the others, to absorb the enormity of events that he had described with such flippancy. 

"You _killed_ the First of the Fallen?" Giles managed to choke out, at last. "What… how?"

"Bit of luck and a gifted sword, mate." 

"Wait, who's this First of the Fallen?" Xander got in before Giles opened his mouth again. He looked confused. "Is he Lucifer?"

"Far from it," Anya corrected. "Actually he was – that's what he says anyway – in Hell long before the Morningstar fell from Heaven, though he's usually only ruled his own Plane and doesn't usually walk abroad – not until lately. He calls himself the King of Hell, but all the Demon Princes do. Some of them probably have even deluded themselves to think that they _are_ the sole rulers of Hell. Usually the rest don't bother with them." 

"Never let it be said that all Ahn can do is run the Magic Box," Xander grinned. 

"I can run other things too," Anya wiggled on Xander's lap. 

"Not now, Ahn," Xander said quickly. "Remember what I said about doing private things in public?"

"So there _is_ a Lucifer, and with him other Demon Princes?" Buffy asked, in part trying to head off where she could see the Xander-Anya interaction was going.

"There are many Planes of Hell, and a Demon Prince rules one each… usually." Willow spoke up brightly. "They usually try to fight with each other, but the balance of power doesn't often tip, since each Prince is very strong on his – or her – home Plane. Lucifer rules…"

"Lucifer, luv, is no longer a Prince of Hell," Constantine offered, wishing that he could smoke. Buffy had made it clear what would happen if he did, and Constantine wasn't particularly sure it was anatomically possible, but didn't want to chance it. "'e quit. Got the King of Dreams at that time – grim bloke called Morpheus - to rip off his wings, now runs a nightclub in LA."

"LA!" Buffy exclaimed, her eyes wide. "Oh no! What's this nightclub called?"

"Relax, luv," Spike spoke up, oddly annoyed at her sudden burst of concern over one who had abandoned her. "You don't need to tell Peaches 'bout this. 'e'd just run off and try to take on the Devil – a fight 'e definitely won't win." Spike seemed to be cheered by this prospect. "On the other hand, just tell him. The nightclub's name is 'Lux'. Nice place. The Morningstar's a great pianist. Also tell him to try and look under the mask of the waitress." Spike smirked at this point, and from Constantine there was a short-lived, sly grin.

Buffy stared at Spike, then snorted, leaning back into the sofa. "I'd tell him later. So this First of the Fallen replaced Lucifer, then?"

"Lucifer gave the key to his Plane to Morpheus." Constantine corrected. "There was a bit of a bother when a lot of things wanted to get their hands on it, but eventually Morpheus gave the key to two Angels – Remiel and Duma. They're currently running his Plane, and the other Princes can't complain because the key did pass to them and was not taken by force." 

"You say you changed the… the administration on the Plane of the First of the Fallen. Who did you turn it to?" Giles adjusted his glasses, a sign that he was waiting for a straight answer and wouldn't stand for any other.

"No one you'd know," Constantine smirked, and Giles' expression grew long-suffering. Irritating the Watcher was nearly as amusing as irritating the vampire.

"Well _yes_, if not we wouldn't ask you," Giles countered, allowing pique to enter his voice.

"Passed it to summat by the name of Jarlaxle – from the world I came from. Smart. Was a mercenary leader. 'e can take it," Constantine said brusquely. 

"But will he be a threat… "

"I'd think the first few years 'e'd be more interested in tryin' to keep order on his Plane and work out his relationships with the other Princes," Constantine said dismissively. "'e won't be spendin' his energy spreadin' havoc on other worlds. 'ere, 'e's fair game to any angels who want to try and take out an inexperienced Demon Prince."

"So, nothing's going to go wrong and spoil our Christmas?" Xander asked, sounding relieved.

"This is the _Hellmouth_, Xander," Buffy reminded him.

"Oh, right."

"Now, what're you going to do with the Constantine?" Spike growled from his seat. "'e's dangerous company, Slayer." 

Constantine glanced at the vampire. "Oy, did I say I was stayin'? Just need a place to kip down for the night, then I'd be out of your hair."

"Will's in the spare room," Buffy said thoughtfully – she couldn't bear to refer to it as her late mother's room - "So unless you don't mind sleeping on the couch…"

"Couch is fine," Constantine agreed. 

"Slayer…" Spike's voice took in a small note of panic as he glanced at Dawn. 

"It might not be very wise," Giles agreed reluctantly with the vampire.

"Giles, I'm the _Slayer_," Buffy said patiently. "I've probably got more enemies than he does, and I've probably never even met most of them. I'm 'dangerous company' as well. The motels are full for Christmas, it's getting late, Xander and Anya probably want privacy… that leaves your place. And if anything goes after him there and tries to spread it around, you'd have less of a chance than me and Will here."

"There's my place," Spike offered with a smirk.

"It's a crypt," Buffy pointed out coolly. "And you sleep on a tomb. I think he'd be better here." 

"Thanks, luv," Constantine said, mildly surprised that they were so quick to trust even when it was rather obvious that he'd left out a lot of his narrative, including Meri, and had been terse with the replies that he had offered. 

"Oh, and what was the person you were callin' to?" Spike said suddenly, as if offhandedly. "In the poof's mansion. You said 'Meri', and then you caught fire."

"Meri's a friend of mine," Constantine replied just as offhandedly. Inside his mind, there was another bird-like chuckle. "Phoenix. Appears when I call for her."

"And where's the panther?" Spike probed, unwilling to give up. The vampire was obviously greatly annoyed that he, Constantine, a stranger, had been accepted into the Summers household so quickly – if even only for a night. Constantine understood that – though he was neither moved nor bothered by it.

"Panther's another friend, also comes when I ask," Constantine replied. "Mostly it tries to mother me. Lives in the Dreamin', where the King of Dreams is."

"Can we go now?" Anya burst in suddenly, losing patience with the word games. "Xander and I have…"

"Ahn… " Xander interrupted quickly. 

"Yeah, and I want to open presents!" Dawn bounced excitedly. 

**

After the Scooby Gang had exchanged presents – though Buffy had accepted Spike's gift of a bracelet with reluctance, most left – Giles promising to come over in the morning with more questions, Xander and Anya hurrying off back to Xander's basement to do some 'catching up'. Willow was rather quiet, and kept glancing at Constantine thoughtfully, but she went upstairs first, ostensibly to go to bed.

"You're sure about this, Slayer?" Spike lingered at the doorway and jerked his head in Constantine's direction, making a last-ditch appeal at Buffy. 

Buffy didn't even look at him as she cleaned up in the kitchen. "Goodnight, Spike."

At this cool dismissal, Spike opened his mouth as if to make some remark, but settled for glaring at Constantine and then retreating into the darkness. Constantine busied himself with piling cushions on the sofa he was to sleep on, though Meri reported that the vampire was still lurking outside the house. 

Dawn gave him a spare comforter, then watched him put it on the table. "Can you do some magic?" She burst out suddenly. "Like now?"

Constantine glanced at her. "Yeah." On some sudden impulse to show off, he petitioned the presence in his mind. : _Something harmless, Meri? 'tis Christmas, innit? _:

: _You should try growing up sometime, JC. Hold out your palm and blow on it, like those crackpot magicians do in your world. _:

: _Are you calling me a crackpot magician, luv? _:

: _I don't need to – you _are_ one._ :

Constantine winked at Dawn and did so. Translucent, luminous blue butterflies sprang into being, singing with the whispers of their wings, fluttering with in a butterfly's awkward dance around her whilst she laughed at the beauty of it, then twirling above her and dissolving into specks of silvery dust that vanished when they touched her. 

"That was great!" Dawn clapped her hands happily. "Do it again!"

"Dawnie…" Buffy warned from the kitchen – though the Slayer was also grinning, and her eyes shone, as if washed in tears. "That was _beautiful_. It's been a while since I've seen anything so beautiful…" her voice trailed off, and the grin turned into a smile.

Constantine was also vaguely surprised, though he made the point of thanking the phoenix. He certainly hadn't been expecting butterflies. "Me Christmas present to you two."

"Can you make birds too?" Dawn asked, nearly jumping up and down in her excitement. "Starlings? Doves? Hawks and eagles?"

From the stairs, hidden by shadow, Willow watched as Constantine conjured one marvelous illusion after another, her fingers clenching, and a tremulous smile on her face. Magic could be beautiful! Why was everyone so frightened of hers even though she'd made some mistakes? 

She resolved to sneak down later and talk to Constantine. Maybe… maybe he could teach her how to stop making the mistakes. If she could control her talent, she could make beautiful things for her friends too… 

**

Nalfein fled, deciding to keep off the strange roads where the metal beasts roared and rushed around at great speeds. He had injured or possibly killed the one that had tried to trample over him, but it had been a near thing, and his eyes still hurt from the bright light of from the creature's own orbs. Half-blinded, he stumbled over a dark field, disoriented and dazed, until he came to a walled-in area with a high metal gate, where he paused to try and recover.

He had a feeling that he had to find shelter, and quickly, for he had not much of an idea how long more night would cloak the land in comfortable darkness. Shelter was necessary, and the spell that would enable him to see in the daylight still needed perfecting.

Behind the gates were several stones shaped by tools that lay at intervals on the ground – tombstones, Nalfein surmised. He had heard of this human custom – unlike that of the drow elves, who put their dead in crypts. There were squat stone buildings beyond the tombstones – possibly the human version of crypts, and Nalfein grimaced at the prospect of taking shelter there. 

Still, it was unlikely that he would be disturbed in the crypts, unless he happened on one where undead were on guard, and there was a chance that it would be dark enough to shelter him from the sun when it rose. Nalfein pushed at the gate, but it was locked. With a sigh, he decided it wasn't worth the effort breaking it – and besides, humans might notice and investigate. Using his innate ability at levitation, he floated himself and his things above the gate and landed neatly on the other side, where, after he had walked for a while, he was, to his irritation, promptly attacked by vampires.

**

Willow waited until everyone else had gone to bed, then walked quietly down to the living room where Constantine was sprawled on the sofa, comforter tucked up to his shoulder, snoring. There was a blue glow emanating from in front of him, and as Willow watched in astonishment, it coalesced into a tall, lithely built woman that looked as though she were in her mid-twenties. Her features were flawless – inhumanly so, Willow thought in panic – long hair that brushed full breasts were dark in hue, with blue highlights. Blue, almond-shaped eyes seemed amused as they settled on her, and glossy lips curved into a smile that seemed benevolent, at least. The woman had two feathers that seemed made of flame in her hair – the same feathers the phoenix had – and she was dressed in an ankle-length blue dress that hugged her figure to the hips then flowed down in soft silky waves. Her skin was fair, with an impossible complexion of cream milk, and as she curtsied to Willow, she moved with an impossible grace.

"Who… who are you?" Willow stammered. 

The woman sat down on Constantine's sofa and grinned. "Who do you think I am, Willow Rosenberg?"

"The blue phoenix… Meri?" 

Meri nodded graciously. "Meridian, to be exact, but you can call me Meri."

"How come you're…" Willow gestured at Constantine, who still seemed to be sleeping peacefully. It was quite a startling transformation – the sardonic, hard set he always seemed to have on his face, the don't-fuck-with-me expression was gone, and he looked serene, tranquil, even.

Meri looked down at him, and her expression was affectionate as she reached out and stroked his cheek. Constantine murmured something in his sleep, and her hand stilled for a moment, then moved up to touch his hair. "I'm not particularly sure either. Technically this isn't allowed – that I can move free from my host – but I suppose the rules change when the world is different. I'm still tied to him – but I found that I could manifest independently. It's quite curious." 

"But why not a bird?" Willow sat down on one of the sofas.

Meri grinned. "In my true size, I could consume the house and not notice it. Your houses are made for the comfort of human-shaped creatures. Now, as to you – you have questions, do you not?"

"Yes… but I was going to ask him," Willow admitted. "And he's sleeping, see?"

"You could ask me," Meri suggested. "I'd probably know what he would say."

"Uh." Willow realized that voicing her questions seemed a lot harder now. "Can you stop using magic?" Immediately, she flushed slightly at the awkward question, but the phoenix had already begun to answer.

"Once you start using it? No," Meri smiled. "To use magic is a choice, and once you make it, you cannot unmake it. After that the question is not 'How can I stop', but 'What do I use it for'."

"So I can't stop using it… " 

"No, but you can control how you use it," Meri said. "Some use magic as they would use a drug – to get the 'high' in it – those are the self-destructive ones, because if you use magic as you would abuse a drug, it would consume you, you would die – or worse. Some use magic as a tool – they have no particular joy in it, but they use it like you would use your hands, to get things done. Some also use it because they delight in having a power that others do not possess."

"How does he use it?" Willow asked, not liking the sound of the first option, as it sounded extremely familiar.

"John Constantine? It is hard to say at any one point," Meri admitted. "I would think he uses it mainly for survival – his survival, usually, since he has a lot of enemies. Though sometimes he uses it as a means to a necessary end. He usually never uses it just for the sake of using magic – he has learnt the folly of that a long time ago, the hard way."

Willow flinched slightly, and looked down at her hands. "But… "

"His way might not be yours," Meri interrupted. "Certainly it may not be the perfect way, for his magic has had a price that he will continue to pay for the rest of his life, and because of it he has come to grief many times. Magic will also have its price for you – but what it is you will have to find out yourself. I would suggest you seek a trusted mentor, or many mentors. You should not venture on magic's road without guidance."

"But who can I ask? Constantine?" 

Meri grinned. "If you would ask him to be your mentor, you should not follow his path, for it ultimately leads to self-destruction, I would think. All the Constantines who chose magic are this way – save one, but she was different, and I think it is already too late for this one to find her road, that led to inner peace. Still, the last child he was a mentor for is still doing rather well – stupid, but doing well."

"So do I ask him?" Willow asked hopefully. "Because I could ask Giles, but I don't think he really would know how."

"No," Meri agreed, "To the Watcher, magic is just a tool of a last resort. I doubt it is that way to you. I will not advise you on who to ask – ask Constantine tomorrow yourself."

"What about now?" 

"He'd be more likely to be helpful when he's rested and eaten breakfast," Meri grinned. "If you want, you could even try bribing him with beer. But tell him nothing about my being able to do this, okay?" 

The phoenix glanced at her sleeping host, and the tips of her mouth curled up, though it seemed that it was an expression of sorrow – an old sorrow, the short glimpse of it still making Willow's throat clench suddenly in nameless empathy, though the witch hardly knew why.

Willow agreed with some effort, then they bid each other good night and she went up the stairs. 

When she looked down once, Meri was dancing to some unheard tune, with flowing elegance around the living room, at times passing through the furniture unheeding like a wraith. The expression on her face was melancholy, or regretful – though because of what, Willow could not begin to guess, and was not sure she wanted to know.

**

Nalfein discovered a relatively large crypt that was vampire-free, and did not seem to have been used for a while, and lacked all the grotesque sculptures he'd seen in other crypts. The crafts of men were crude compared to dark elven carvings, and he found them quite offensive to look upon. Relieved, he made his way into it, and found that there were crumbling stone stairs that led to a lower level where he could shelter out of the sun and polish up the spells he would need in peace. 

Peace had been strangely lacking ever since he'd come onto this world. First the metal beast, then the eight vampires which he systematically destroyed, not wanting them to spread the news of his presence, then when he was looking around the crypts he'd gotten attacked by some strange, slimy demon who'd objected violently when he walked into his crypt. It wasn't even like he _wanted_ that crypt – the slime was just about everywhere. The irritating demon hadn't shown up on Nalfein's infravision – some sort of natural protection, he supposed - it was hardly _his _fault. 

Nalfein didn't even want to think about the next crypt that he had tried to enter – the pack of components had nearly been ripped at, there. Vampires, it seemed, made nests of their own in this area – and Nalfein decided that the crypts of the cemetery would only be a temporary solace, with such neighbors. His consolation was that only few things could actually kill vampires – so he'd taken out his frustrations on the vampire nest. They were still in the land of the living – or unliving, if one would have it – though they no doubt wished they were not, by now. The mage's mouth curled into a vicious smile at this thought. Blood-flow and violence were quite comforting to behold – or to cause, and what was more comforting was that for once he had not consecrated the killings to the Goddess, and had felt or seen no censure. Perhaps Lloth's hold on him here was truly gone.

Nalfein went down the stone stairs lightly and looked around keenly. Though there were a few more stone tombs in here, the mage left them alone and put down the components neatly in one corner, then proceeded to ward the place against intrusion, tracing out symbols on the stairs and murmuring words of power. 

Behind him, one of the lids of stone moved a crack.


	3. Mentorship and a Meeting

Chapter 2

Mentorship and a Meeting

"Mentor?" Constantine looked at Willow over the rim of his mug. She smiled at him cheerfully, hoping that the breakfast had been nearly enough of a bribe and that his brain hadn't woken up yet. Sprawled on the sofa with pillows and a rumpled coverlet, Constantine looked like some modern-day parody of a sovereign, tithed with coffee, eggs, toast and leftover ham and sausages by an ambassador anxious to please. 

: _It'd give you something useful to do other than trying to drink yourself into a stupor each time you find a pub. _: Meri informed him mildly.

: _The last little tour I took a mentor on didn't turn out too well, did it? _: He thought of Tim and all that mess the boy had managed to get into. : _And I'm not what you'd call stable, luv. Maybe I could refer her… _: He was beginning to sound like a bleedin' phone book. The Yellow Pages of Magic. 

: _Timothy Hunter's doing quite well now. _:

: _Well as in 'not dead', yes. He's not exactly smart – all that business with whatshername, Molly… _:

: _It won't hurt. Willow needs help _now_, and I doubt you'd be able to locate your more 'stable' associates that quickly._ : Meri's tone of voice showed him what she personally thought of his associates, stable or not.

: _I know._ : Constantine took a sip of the coffee. Willow was sitting expectantly, looking for all the world like a normal teenager waiting for a gift, but Constantine could almost feel the magic trying to boil out of her. The lids on this one were very thin, there was power, and worst of all, she was beginning to remind him of Gemma, his niece, to whom he tried to be an uncle who would shield her from the destructive path she would walk if she attempted magic like a Constantine… The obvious difference, though, was that though Gemma had not yet chosen (he hoped), Willow had. If Gemma had chosen, then he would have done his best to guide her.

: _So? _: Meri pressed, still trying to drive him to a decision. 

He sighed. "If you're lookin' for a one-day cure, luv, I'm not the one you're lookin' for. And if you're lookin' for some selfless sod who'd teach you to use your magic for 'the good of all' and all that, you've got to go elsewhere too."

"I'm looking for someone who can teach me control… "

Constantine snorted. "I'm not exactly in control with all of my magic here. Meri manages the actual casting for some."

: _With your leave to do so, JC. _:

: _Why are you so interested in me gettin' this pupil? _: Constantine asked suspiciously.

: _Well, I like her, she's in need, and I have a feeling that if I don't get you to do something useful you'd go back to drowning yourself in beer. _:

"But before you met Meri?"

"Before that," Constantine drawled, "Yeah, you _could_ call it 'control', using magic to get money whenever I want to, sleep in hotel rooms, cure me lung cancer… "

"Lung cancer? You can cure cancer?" Buffy said from the stairs, her face deathly pale. 

"Oh, Buffy!" Willow jumped up guiltily, beginning to babble. "I was just talking to…"

"Where were you when my mother was dying?" Buffy bit her lip, tears welling up in her eyes. "They told me magic couldn't do it! That I couldn't meddle, and now I've lost my mother! _Where were you?_"

"Listen to me, luv," Constantine's voice rose slightly. "You wouldn't have _wanted_ to use my way." 

"Who are you to tell me which way I can use!" Buffy's grief turned into a dangerous, consuming fury, and for a brief moment Constantine could understand why demons would quail at the approach of a Slayer. He, however, refused to be cowed.

"_Listen to me_." Constantine put his mug down heavily on the table, causing the dark coffee to splash out and stain the newspapers. "Come down here. Sit."

This Buffy did, sitting down next to Willow, walking almost stiffly, dashing away at the tears with the back of her hand. Willow sat, putting a comforting arm around her best friend.

"Right," Constantine sighed, wondering why he always got into such strange fixes with women, and knowing that only honesty would get him out of this one. "What I did was I sold my soul to three different Demon Princes at the same time, okay?" There were gasps from the two, but he ignored them and continued, speaking patiently, with all the air of some father figure reprimanding recalcitrant children. 

This particular role felt extremely strange.

"Without any of them knowing that I'd pulled the same on the other two. Same old clause – they'd get my soul if I die. So that night I cut me wrists, and all three of them showed up. If they fought over my soul, war would come to Hell, Heaven would follow up, and then the Apocalypse, see? So they healed me – very painfully – and let me go."

"But you got healed." Buffy said stubbornly, though she wouldn't meet his eyes. 

Constantine rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. It was far too early in the morning for this thing. "Nearly caused the end of the world too, luv. And it brought me no end of trouble – one of the Princes was the First of the Fallen, and 'e did away with the other two… and kept tryin' to get at me after that. Walked on a knife-edge for several years until recently." 

"So. If your ma was really the type who'd have wanted to come back any way – even that way – I reckon," Constantine said carefully, if firmly, "That she wouldn't have deserved to have been healed at all." He smiled a little. Time to say something comforting. "Bit different 'bout me. Either way, I'd have gone to Hell anyway. Was just tryin' to put dyin' off. While your ma – I'm quite sure she's been off to Heaven, see?" 

Buffy nodded numbly, glad that Dawn had gone off to school. "I… I understand." There was a strained pause for a moment and the outside world – birdcalls and distant conversations from neighbors, shouts down the street – filtered in. "Is there a Heaven, John Constantine?" she whispered. "Sometimes I think after this there's nothing. Just nothing, and even Hell is a waking dream."

It was _definitely_ too early in the morning for this kind of talk, and being a comforter was a role that Constantine didn't like to play. "Seems to me, luv, that if you think there's a Heaven – then there'd be one. There're different heavens as well. Met a bloke whose heaven was a pub with great beer." He grinned. "That'd have had to be Hell for some, innit?"

"Not for you," Buffy retorted, and laughed suddenly, playful again. "Have you ever seen angels then, Constantine?"

"Yeah," Constantine reached for his coffee. "Snarky snobs. Maybe there're better ones – heard that Duma's quite decent – but I wouldn't know." He looked at Willow, who, to his dismay, didn't seem put off by the description of the rather selfish deed that he had done. The mesmerized look on her face when he talked about magic rather resembled Gemma's, in fact. Fuck. "Still want me for mentor, luv?"

"If you'd have me," Willow said hesitantly. "I don't need someone to emulate. I need someone who can teach me how to have enough mastery over my magic such that I can make my own choices – and I want to do good with it, really I do."

"Might not be able to teach you that successfully," Constantine told her.

"But you're here," Buffy said, firmly on Willow's side. Apparently she also believed her friend needed guidance – a guidance that he was not exactly qualified to give. 

"It's a chance I have to take… and Meri can help, can't she?" Willow asked, appealing to him with wide eyes.

: _All right, have you been speakin' to her? _: Constantine turned his thought inwards skeptically. 

: _Would I do that? _:

: _Yes. _:

: _Well, I have been a mentor and teacher to many students of various magics in Toril. It wouldn't hurt to give you some advice. _:

: _That wasn't my question, luv. _:

Meri replied with a mental chuckle and was silent. Irritated at her, Constantine leant back on the sofa and closed his eyes. On one hand, he rather felt like going back to London to have a look around, irritate some of his few remaining friends, get on the nerves on his expanding circle of enemies… and then again, perhaps not. Though he didn't particularly have very good memories of America – and this was far too close a spot to Hell than he would have liked, he felt some reluctance, at the moment, to move. Perhaps because here it was quite possible that the Slayer overshadowed him as a target so much that he could be able to hide for a while in peace while leading a life that had better living conditions than usual…

"Fine, I agree to be your mentor, luv – just hope you don't regret askin'." Constantine told her. Willow and Buffy smiled with relief. 

"Thank you!" Willow said with a grin, then, remembering belatedly what Meri had told her, added, "Oh! I can get you some beer if you want."

"I knew there'd be advantages somewhere," John smirked. 

"No drinking in this house," Buffy said firmly. "It'd stink."

"We could take him Bronzing today," Willow suggested. "They've got beer there."

"But we're going to watch… "  
"I know, we could get him a ticket too… " 

"At this time?"

"I was going to book before lunch."

"At the cinema?"

"No, on the 'Net… though we'd have to pay…"

"Paying's fine, Will, I just got my latest 'allowance' cheque from the Council."

"Remind me to thank Giles for persuading them to turn Slaying into a paying job."

Constantine, feeling slightly dazed, watched the two girls chatter to themselves animatedly without allowing him a word in edgeways, and considered falling asleep again. He almost wished he hadn't taken on the new responsibility, for he had a feeling that nothing good would come of it.

**

It was morning outside, and Nalfein was feeling tired from the night's exertions. It'd turned out that he had black luck with choosing accommodations – this one had housed some more vampires. They apparently bred like rothe in this world – but at least if one killed them they crumbled into dust instead of leaving messy bodies. As a precaution, he'd burned the contents of the other tombs in this crypt before going back to drawing out his wards. 

He'd questioned one of the vampires, but they'd never heard of anything that could have been a key of such energy here, though there was a magic shop around this place somewhere which he made a note to look in. Perhaps it'd have surfacer spellbooks, something which Underdark mages were always interested in – or even better, spells never before heard of, unique to this world. The problem was that it opened only in the daytime, and direct sunlight still hurt his eyes, though it was barely tolerable even with the new spell. 

Whether he could find the key or not in there wasn't particularly of overwhelming importance, since in the instructions there was another source where he could pry it from – some human monks that lived somewhere in this place – though he had a feeling that he'd have to fight a mage-battle against them, and he was not sure of their strength. 

The other vampire, before Nalfein had lost patience and used magic to set him aflame, had said something more useful about there being sewers that connected buildings under the city, and more importantly, had shown him where he could find a map. 

Nalfein sighed, and, making himself as comfortable as possible near the components, set his staff on guard and went to sleep. It'd be a problem that he'd look at more closely later, when the sun's glare was not so cruel.

**

Spike, stalking in the sewers aimlessly, was looking for trouble. He had found it several times, but so far he'd only managed to cool off, and was considering trying to cultivate some form of friendship in Constantine. Making the best of the bad job – if Buffy openly accepted Constantine, it'd serve him better in his eyes if he attempted, at least, to be civil. He rather regretted yesterday's outbursts, in that effect – the cold, closed look in Buffy's eyes when he had made his last appeal was especially painful. 

He knew Constantine was dangerous, but he, of all people, a Master vampire only recently and rather unwillingly beginning to fight by the Slayer's side, should have given the poor sod a chance. At least he'd known Constantine had done _some_ good in his life, scattered in between all the unbelievable deeds of betrayal, blackmail and the gods knew what else. What good had he, William the Bloody, done, for more than a century, until he had met Buffy? It was quite possible that for most of the deeds that Constantine had committed, he, Spike, had also committed equivalents. 

And in Constantine, at least, was the closest person so far in Sunnydale, other than perhaps the Nibblet, that he could identify with, in terms of likings, philosophy – hell, even speech patterns. Since there was no way he could get Constantine to sod off unless Buffy thought he was to go, he might as well try to get closer to him – all the easier to see if there was any act of treachery that could be incoming.

Spike shook his head irritably. What was he thinking? Constantine had said he would leave today. Though it didn't really hurt to be cautious…

He rounded a slimy corner, distracted by thoughts, and nearly bumped into a hooded figure in dark robes levitating a foot or so above the ground. Startled, he leaped backwards, and the figure also seemed to do a double-take, hand clutching an ornate dragon staff more tightly. With some dismay, Spike realized the hand looked human, so if this thing – whatever it was – was hostile, then he, Spike, would have to run away instead of fight. What was worse, the thing looked like a magus.

Hopefully he'd be able to scare it away – so he went into game face, the bumps and ridges and feral-yellow eyes appearing as his demon came forth. As usual, this release of control to his demon made him feel very… aggressive, and he growled.

This did not have the effect that he'd hoped for. The figure seemed to sigh in resignation, and spoke in an unfamiliar, musical tongue. "_Mzild del dos_!" He raised his free hand, chanting words too quick to catch in the same language, then flicked his wrist.

Spike, recognizing the start of a spell once the whatever-it-was had started chanting, had already started running back where he came from, cursing his luck and praying to whatever gods may be listening that it wasn't a holding spell. He dared not attempt to attack the thing, because if it were human the shock from his chip with the no-attacking-humans clause might render him incapable of running, with the pain.

None too soon – behind him he heard the crackle of flame and the hiss as it hit the water, and on instinct he leaped to the side and continued to run as fast as he could. A bolt of light crackled past him, sizzling in the air, and Spike ducked into a side tunnel quickly. He took many routes and kept changing directions until he was quite sure that there was no pursuit, then paused to catch his breath.

Looking around, he realized he was near the Magic Box's back entrance. Hopefully he'd be able to get in without frying in the sun and get some help. 

All thoughts of Constantine, for the moment, forgotten, he got up a ladder to a manhole and pushed.

**

To Buffy's surprise, Giles had not objected to Willow asking Constantine to be her mentor, and his acceptance. Though still wary of him, Giles had grudgingly accepted Constantine for the time being, and was rather gratified that he had shown not only interest in the shop but considerable knowledge in the things sold. From the table, Giles was watching Constantine with benign astonishment that was almost comic as the magus flirted outrageously with every female who entered the shop and nudged them, inexorably, to buy something harmless. Most of the girls probably had just come in out of curiosity without any intention to spend money. Polite attempts to decline had been met with more flattery of both the girls and the prospective goods; suggestion of uses, jokes, and finally the girl would capitulate in good-humor to his rather masterful manipulation. 

Anya, of course, had warmed to him for this, and grinned wickedly whenever Constantine winked at her over another buying customer. She wondered if she could persuade Giles to pay Constantine to be a salesman.

"Okay, we got tickets for the six o' clock Lord of the Rings show and we can go get a late dinner after that," Willow said happily, leaning back from her seat. "Eight tickets."

"Xander, Anya, Giles, Me, You, Dawn and Constantine makes seven, Will," Buffy said, frowning.

"I know – Dawn told me to get one more for…"

"Slayer!" Spike burst into the room from behind, wild-eyed and obviously agitated. "There's something in… "

"Oh be quiet, Spike," Anya smiled reassuringly at customers. "You're scaring people away."

Spike glanced at her, opened his mouth, then shut it again and slumped down on a chair at the table. Buffy wrinkled her nose. "You've been walking around in the sewers again."

"Yeah, I was goin' to say I saw somethin' in it," Spike said, a little annoyed at the disapproval, even though it was deserved. "A mage."

"Constantine's been here all day," Willow said quickly. Hearing the sound of his name, Constantine abandoned his flattery of a pretty brunette and wandered over to the table.

"I didn't say it was him," Spike said irritably. "This bloke wore a hood and black robes…"

"Ooh, Nazgul!" Willow subsided when everyone glanced at her. "Sorry."

Spike, having been forced to read the book at Drusilla's instigation several years ago when his Black Queen was crazy over it, rolled his eyes and ignored the witch. "The thing had black skin and human hands, and held some tacky staff that resembles a dragon. It said something like 'Mzild del dos' – then started flingin' lightnin' bolts at me."

"Are you sure it said that?" Constantine asked, a horrible suspicion forming inside him. Black skin… 

"Yeah." Spike said simply, not wishing to say anything else that would imply any suspicion of Constantine in this affair.

"You've heard it before?" Giles looked to Constantine, who frowned. 

"Not the words, but the language." Constantine replied absently. "Bloody hell. I'd go find out."

"How?" Willow asked, hoping that Constantine was going to perform some magic. He hadn't actually done any teaching so far. "Where?"

"There's summat I can ask in the Dreamin'," Constantine replied, looking extremely disturbed. "I think I'd go there for a bit."

"The Dream King?" Giles asked worriedly. 

"No – some other bloke."

"How are you going to get into this Dreaming thing?" Buffy said, feeling that the conversation was getting away from her again. Looking at Spike, she saw the same confusion and the same willingness to act on the advice of those before her, and there was a sudden, strange moment of affinity. He glanced at her suddenly with those beautiful ice blue eyes, but she quickly looked away.

"Magic, luv." Constantine grinned, then he addressed Willow. "Want to tag along?"

"Of course!" Willow fairly bounced to her feet. "Unless they need me with the researching here…"

"If I'm correct, this thing isn't from this world, and you probably won't find it in your books, luv." Constantine looked around, took his trenchcoat from where it was draped on a chair, then started for the closed door to the training room, putting on the garment at the same time. "Comin'?"

"It's close by?" Giles asked, confused, following them, as well as Buffy and Spike.

"Could be." Constantine said, recovering some of his normal annoying insouciance, opened the door, took Willow's hand, then they both stepped into it, and vanished.

**

Willow gasped in surprise and pleasure when they emerged into a forest with large, ancient trees that towered above them like so many benevolent giants. The air was crisp and cool, and there were silver pools of light on the ground, as if the moon had gained in its brilliance and sought to imitate the Sun itself. The forest was alive with a symphony of sound – mostly chirps from insects and the burps of far-off frogs, and sometimes the rustle of leaves far above them. Further away there were occasional clearings where the silver light washed down onto the ground unchecked by the giants, like some scene cut right out of fantasy. She half-expected to find unicorns and tinkling waterfalls, or pixies flying out of the trees. There was little undergrowth, but the humus under her feet smelled earthy and salubrious.

"Is this the Dreaming?" she asked Constantine, nearly drunk at the sight. 

"Part of it," Constantine replied, pushing his hands into his pockets as he got his bearings, then whistled sharply twice. He waited until the echoes drifted away, then spoke again. "We're off to get us a guide." He did not, however, move.

"Do we come to this place each time we dream?" Willow asked, putting her hands on the nearest tree. The bark was rough and scratchy under her palms, and it certainly felt real.

"To different parts of it, and not all look like this place," Constantine said, leaning against one of the trees. "But when you dream, you go to the Dreamin'. Sometimes if you're lucky you'd meet the Dream King, but usually when you wake you won't remember."

"Who are we looking for?" Willow felt slightly embarrassed at asking so many questions, but Constantine seemed to have no objections to it.

"Other than the guide? Friend of mine." Constantine said easily, leaving out the bit that the 'friend' might not be too pleased to see him again. 

"Oh." Willow's eyes tried to pierce the depths of the forest as she framed her next question. "Can we all just enter the Dreaming this way, or is there a spell?" When Constantine didn't reply immediately, she launched off again. "Because this is really beautiful, and… "

"Normally you can't, unless invited or dreamin'. I'm an exception – did somethin' for the Dream King once, and he allows me to seek sanctuary here whenever I need it."

A dark shadow suddenly seemed to detach itself from behind Constantine's tree and rub itself against his legs, purring happily. Willow blinked, and the shadow was now a large black panther – the same one she'd seen in the warehouse. Constantine rubbed its ears affectionately. "This panther's Guenhwyvar or Guen. Our guide." The panther glanced up at him steadily. "We need to find Zaknafein," he told it.

Shaking itself, as if shrugging, it began to lope off into the forest, and they followed it.

**

"Bloody hell!" Spike voiced the general feelings of the trio as they stared at the door. Holding his spectacles, Giles walked through it tentatively, then, as he did not disappear, walked back through.

"Giles, where have they gone?" Buffy appealed to him, nearly resembling, at that moment, a very young girl asking questions of her father, her youth convincing her of his omniscience. 

"The Dreaming, he said," Giles attempted to be reassuring. 

"Is it safe?" Buffy pressed on with questions.

"S'long as he doesn't go into the nightmare bits," Spike muttered, but Buffy had heard this and her eyes widened. 

"Giles!" 

"There is no way we can follow her," Giles said, feeling irritated at Constantine's callous manner. "We'd have to hope they would be safe, since he has agreed to be her mentor, I doubt he'd allow harm to come to her if he could help it."

"Mentor?" Spike looked even more confused now. Constantine was Willow's mentor now? That was news that he could not decide if it were good or ill – it would mean that Constantine would not be leaving today – but if he had inspired that much trust in still-unstable spell-caster… The vampire reminded himself of his resolve to be friendly, and controlled his features so as not to show any resentment of the fact.

"Yes," Giles nodded at the vampire, a little curtly. "Now, I think we could make ourselves more useful by going through the… the books. Maybe there's something about this mage inside it."

"Maybe he was just reacting to Spike going all 'Grr'," Buffy suggested. "May not be a evil thing."

"Constantine looked a bit worried when I described it, luv," Spike reminded her. 

"Yeah… " Buffy sighed, rather unwilling to agree with the vampire, but had to do so due to prudence. She looked at the shelves of books, and decided. "All right. Research-Buffy mode." She paused. "I wonder who Willow got the eighth movie ticket for."

--

Notes and References:

__

Mzild del dos: More of you


	4. Five Words

Chapter 3

Five words

"Zaknafein!" Constantine called, a little too cheerfully. 

The panther bounded ahead towards two figures, the smaller of which, a child, laughed and hugged it. Walking closer, Willow saw that the taller one was around Constantine's height, though his posture was straight and proud. His skin was midnight-black in hue, and his long hair was so white as to be nearly silvery, like the moon's light, his ears tapering to points. Dark-colored eyes of indeterminable hue glared at Constantine as the magus approached. 

The elf – and elf it was – wore a dark blue cloak attached with a silver brooch of a snarling wolf, and a jacket of black leather that looked as supple as the material of Spike's duster, open to reveal chainmail armor wrought of some dark metal. The jacket was caught at the hips with a belt, from which hung two unadorned leather sword-scabbards. The hilts of the swords were also free of any carving or decoration, not that it made the elf appear any less menacing. Black leather pants ended in high black boots, all in all, combined with the elf's hunter's grace, made him appear like some strange incarnation of the black panther. Willow thought him quite the most handsome creature she had ever seen – handsome and strangely remote, like something quite unattainable, a dark jewel through a shop window that one could idly dream of having but would never practically consider it.

The elven child's features rather resembled the adult, and it was quite obvious that they were related in some way. The elf moved forward to stand between Constantine and the child, one hand casually on the hilt of a sword. "Constantine. What do you want?" As he spoke, Willow was certain that he wasn't actually speaking in English, but for some reason, she could understand it – as though the atmosphere itself was translating the sounds en route to her ears.

Constantine stopped and grinned impishly. "Why is it whenever I see you that's the first thing you say, elf?"

"Because your visits are usually never social," Zaknafein replied coldly, then the hard mask seemed to slip into quiescent amusement. "Saw Jarlaxle in the Heart of the Dreaming. Heard you made him a Demon Prince."

Constantine nodded, and Zaknafein sighed. "Jarlaxle – any Jarlaxle - would have been my choice for a Demon Prince, if I wanted Hell to win over Heaven in the Final Battle. Did you know he got all the demons in his Plane to turn themselves into the appearances of dark elves?"

"What for?" Constantine blinked. 

"Loyalty, I would think," Zaknafein shrugged. "His arguments were quite clever when the Dream King questioned him diplomatically on this – but like most of his arguments, I care not to remember their substance. He can make you believe that darkness is light and light is darkness if you listen to him long enough. The other Princes would do well not to underestimate him like his mother had."

Constantine thought about this for a while. Though it would indeed show which demons were actually 'loyal' (as far as demons could be loyal), or apparently loyal to him, it could also create a lot of bad feeling amongst the demons who resented the forced shape-change. Was this an act of true caprice, or was there a deeper reason for it that Constantine couldn't begin to guess at? Some strange form of aestheticism, perhaps? He decided he couldn't be bothered, and inside his mind, the phoenix laughed at him with fond merriment at his attitude. 

"What are you here for?" Zaknafein asked again, irritably though his hand slipped off the hilt of his sword.

"I needed a bit of a translation, since I think you dark elves speak the same language in most of the worlds," Constantine said, deciding not to banter any longer. "There's a suspected dark elf on the bit of the world I'm in. Mage. Does '_Mzild del dos_' mean anythin' to you?"

Zaknafein frowned, but the child behind him, who had always been secretly fond of Constantine, spoke up helpfully. "It means 'More of you' in dark elf." He ducked his head quickly, pretending to be absorbed in playing with the panther, when Zaknafein shot him a glance.

Zaknafein sighed, but did not say anything else, only stared at Constantine with a cool, unrelenting intensity.

"Right, so it's possible that the thing was a dark elf," Constantine muttered. "Great. And I'd just _bet_ all the cigarettes I'd ever smoked that it was a Do'Urden."

"Why so?" Zaknafein's voice seemed disinterested, but with dark elves, one would never actually know.

"I seem to run into variants of your House every-_bloody_-where I go, that's why."

**

Nalfein looked at the sunlight filtering down into the damp darkness of the sewer from the opened manhole above with distaste. The vampire had fled, and out of instinct he'd conjured a Wizard's Eye – invisible to all save Nalfein - to go after him, a useful spying spell that created a fist-sized, floating eyeball that would project images into his mind. It was a surfacer spell that had been gaining vogue amongst Menzoberranzan mages since early this century. The Eye had followed the vampire up and out into the sunlight – the fact that the vampire had voluntarily gone up into the sun was strange enough, but the fact that the vampire had sought – and found – help from the humans in the magic shop was even stranger. 

The gabbling of the humans in their coarse, unmusical speech was just about nonsense to Nalfein's ears, and he dismissed the Eye – it no longer being of use to him since he didn't want to waste energy casting a spell of Understanding Language on something that might have nothing to do with his task at all. It was evident that he could not go into the shop in this form any longer, now that the vampire had set them on alert, and Nalfein idly considered illusions – and the problem that though he would understand the humans, he would not be able to speak their language. 

Perhaps if he walked in the shop at night, when they slept? That would be a better option, except for its main flaw – from what he had seen of the shop and all its trinkets, it might take some time for the spider pendant to locate the Key, if it was even in there. But no matter. If the humans attempted to attack him, he would simply show them the power of a Mage Lord. 

Resolving to return later, Nalfein retraced his path in the sewers, took a wrong turning, and was attacked by a pack of demons as he neared the entrance of their territory. He sighed deeply as he raised his staff against them, drawing his power to him. 

Would this world _never_ tire of violence?

**

"So how do I slay it?" Buffy asked immediately when Constantine stated what they had found and Willow had finished gushing about the Dreaming. Their visit there had taken a few hours as Constantine had taken Willow around on a bit of a tour, then they'd bid the panther farewell and returned to find the others relieved and studying books a little fruitlessly. The only dark elf thing they had found that was related to this was a lot of information on Lloth, the Spider Queen, evil goddess of the dark elves, and Constantine _definitely_ didn't want to think about her. 

She had a grudge against him, and had been trying to kill him for a while – and he had a bad feeling that this dark elf incident had _something_ to do with her, which meant that it was quite likely that he was the source of the problem, though he had not thought her anger at him had now extended to pursuing him across worlds when she should be concentrating on the new, possibly hostile Demon Prince. 

"Have you ever considered going for psychiatric help?" Constantine asked, with mock concern.

"Well, if what you say of dark elves is correct, then it's most probably evil, up to no good, and so, if it hatches some dark plot, I thwart it, then I slay it," Buffy ticked off the list on her fingers, ignoring Constantine's jibe. "If it's not, and it's just going around using vampires for target practice, then I find it and thank it."

Spike snorted. 

"I have no idea what it's up to, or why it'd be here, luv," Constantine decided to withhold some of the truth. "Dark elves don't like the sunlight or the surface world as a rule."

"So, we ignore it." Buffy said, then turned to Willow, remembering something. "Who's got the eighth ticket, Will?"

Willow smiled nervously from where she sat, and looked involuntarily at Spike.

"What?" Spike asked, bewildered. "What ticket?"

"Dawn asked me to get a ticket for Spike," Willow said defensively. "I told her what you'd think of it, but she insisted."  
"What ticket?" Spike asked, more loudly this time.

"Argh! When I get my hands on her… " Buffy growled. "Can you cancel it?"

"You've technically paid for it already, but she said she's willing to repay you." Willow smiled a little sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Buffy… "

Giles sighed, and got up to go and mind the customers, not wanting to see yet another verbal battle between his Slayer and Spike. He hoped she wouldn't break anything this time. Constantine, however, stayed put, his delight in watching discord commanding him to.

"There's nothing to it then… " Buffy continued to ignore Spike. "But he's not going to sit next to me. God knows what he does when he watches movies."

"Movie?" Spike grasped, then smirked. "The Lord of the Rings movie you lot are goin' to watch today? Aww, the Nibblet shouldn't have."

"That's exactly it!" Buffy glared at him. "She is _so _going to get it from me. I go for three hours of peace and Legolas and Spike has to come along."

"You _like_ Legolas?" Spike couldn't help but sneer, although he knew better than to try and antagonize her further. "C'mon, Slayer… "

"He's extremely cute," Buffy retorted, folding her arms. "And I can't believe I'm discussing this with you, Mr. Peroxide."

"'sides, he's got such a pansy name. "Greenleaf", indeed."

"There's nothing wrong with his name," Willow protested quickly.

"And you suppose 'William the Bloody' is the epitome of cool, yes?" Buffy closed ranks with Willow on this issue.

"There's nothin' wrong with it, Slayer." Spike said blandly.

"Of course there's wrong with it! There's… there's a _lot_ of wrong with it!"

Spike, recognizing a circular argument when he saw one, tried another tack. "And he _sings_ in the books."

"So does everyone else," Willow replied, rather surprised that Spike had implied that he'd read them.

"It's a bleedin' _choir_. Load of pansies." 

"No one said you have to come anyway," Buffy said coldly.

Spike stared at her, and when he finally spoke, his voice was weary and soft. "If you don't want me to come, Slayer, then I won't go."

"Spike… "

"If you want me to die, Slayer, then say the word. Sun's outside, and I'd fry nicely in minutes. You'd be rid of me forever. That'd be what you want, innit?"

There was the sharp scrape of a chair as Willow got up hastily and dragged Constantine away from a scene that was patently private. She all but pushed him at the customers, then went to hide with Anya behind the counter, glad that the ex-vengeance demon was too happy counting money to notice the confrontation. Privately, she felt that Buffy's relationship was her own affair, but sometimes others got caught in the crossfire, especially if she decided to get violent. 

Buffy and Spike gave no indication that they'd noticed them leaving.

"Spike… "

"I'm gettin' tired, Slayer, very tired of runnin' after you like some bleedin' spaniel for you to kick at for your amusement. It's been a while since I've been helpin' you with patrols and protectin' the gang for you, and it doesn't seem to have done much, does it?" Spike continued, as if he hadn't heard. "When I was the Big Bad – and we fought – I could see the respect in your eyes, Slayer. Respect, even if it was for an opponent, and it's all gone now, innit?"

"Because what I see now, Slayer, is disgust, and I'm gettin' tired of that too. I don't understand why," Spike said, his voice still close to a whisper, looking away from Buffy, who seemed to be frozen onto her chair, her expression a mask of calm. "When I fight against you, I get respect – when I fight for you, I'm to be some whipped sod you call when you want some backup but you toss away later without even a word of thanks. I'm not just some weapon you can use and put away, luv… " Spike took a shuddering, unnecessary breath, suddenly aware that he was on the verge of declaring his love for her, and in public as well, aware that he was whining, but the words had just burst out like summer floods. Bloody hell. 

If he knew her, she'd say something suitably cutting that'd rip up all his words to shreds, and if he knew himself, he'd still stay by her, unable to leave, to get up and walk off first and save the remnants of his dignity. Maybe he deserved this treatment, or was indirectly the cause of it, the way he debased himself this way in front of her with his words, his eyes, his actions. Maybe… 

"I know that, Spike," Buffy said finally, rather neutrally. She felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to leave the Magic Box – slip out of it without a word of substance like all her past lovers had slipped out of her life. Allowing her life to turn into a real-time metaphor for the self-destructive loneliness of what it meant to be _the_ Slayer, though she was not the only one now, was she? 

Spike looked in her eyes, and his expression frightened her – because she could tell there was love there, and a yearning so strong that it was on the brink of consuming him totally, that could just reduce him into a shell that had only one thought – a craving for her - the same look of relentless addiction that Buffy always saw on Willow's face nowadays whenever her best friend used, or saw, magic. In her shock at this revelation of what she had always only vaguely known about Spike she jumped to her feet, preparing to escape, and his face expression just seemed to shut down and turn grim. 

"That all you'd say then?" he murmured.

Buffy felt a sudden and totally unanticipated burst of compassion, and she smiled slightly, if hesitantly, but to Spike, with whom Buffy was his world, the smile was like the glorious sunrise after a cold winter's night. "See you at the movie." 

With that, she fled, past her friends who had been, ostensibly, not listening – past Constantine, whose quick smile was strangely sympathetic, as if he understood her and what she had done, past uncaring customers and out into the harsh light, and she ran on, giving in totally to the pure physical sensations around her – the warmth of the sunlight, the hard concrete, the sounds of traffic and pedestrians, and the beating of a heart that now seemed quite unfamiliar.

Behind her, Spike stared at the open door of the Magic Box, his mouth comically open in shock that quickly turned into euphoria so intense, at those five words, that he found he was afraid of it. "Look what you've done to me, Slayer," he murmured, too softly for the rest of them to hear. "The whipped dog's willing to forget everything – _going_ to forget everything – just for five bleedin' words. Five words. Bloody _hell_."

From the shelves, Constantine shot one more glance at the vampire, then returned to trying to charm the current girl he had latched on to try and buy something useless, since it amused him to do so. He had the feeling that Meri had enjoyed the interaction between the vampire and the slayer very much, and he wasn't quite sure why. It was probably perverse.

Strangely enough, that thought hadn't gotten any answer. Deciding that he'd never be able to understand females, even females that were actually burning birds of flame, he turned his attention back to the girl, and managed, after many smiles and 'accidental' touches and honeyed words, to get her to buy an ugly statue of a bear that had no actual arcane value at all. 

**

"Bloody hell," Constantine muttered when yet another bugger's handphone went off somewhere close behind him with an annoying ring tone. The normal shrill rings of 'phones were aggravating enough, but ring tones were a lot worse, in his opinion. The tinny sounds that were often crude copies of actual music seemed to defile the music. Gah. 

"If I didn't have the bleedin' chip in my bleedin' head, " Spike growled softly next to him, "I'd find all of them after this and rip off their heads slowly." 

Spike was seated between Constantine and Dawn – Constantine next to Willow, on the extreme left of the line, and Buffy next to Dawn. Giles was next, then Xander and Anya. Spike, to his surprise, was enjoying the movie immensely, especially the violent scenes, although he felt a niggling irritation that they had cut a lot of scenes from the book and replaced them with needless ones. 

He was also gratified that he was sitting close to Buffy, though listening to Buffy, Dawn and Willow sigh or make soft exclamations whenever Legolas appeared was a bit torturous. Spike irritably wondered why she found Legolas so 'cute' when she didn't seem to see anything in him… then he realized that he'd found the root of his problem. He was jealous of Buffy's infatuation with an imaginary character! "Pathetic," he muttered under his breath.

Constantine was also enjoying the movie, even though cigarettes weren't allowed and Tolkien reminded him of agonizing hours in his schoolboy days spent trying to glean meanings from the songs in the books. He also didn't understand why the girls were so crazy over Legolas, but he decided that it was because they'd never actually _seen_ a real elf before. He was beginning to wonder if a Silence-radius spell on the theatre would keep the handphones quiet, but he decided that it'd probably cut off the sound as well, which would most likely cause Buffy and her friends to kill him. 

Another handphone went off, during the tense scene of Gandalf's showdown with the Balrog on the bridge. Beside him, Spike growled again, more deeply this time, suggesting that chip or not, the vampire was beginning to lose patience. 

: _Meri, can you lend me a bit of strength, luv? Normally I can only do this when I'm face-to-face. _:

Meri paused, analyzing what he was proposing to do, then her answer was positively gleeful. : _I _like_ you._ :

John concentrated briefly, then he smirked to himself. "Done." 

Spike looked at him curiously, and John's smirk grew. "Tell you later," he mouthed. 

On the screen, the Fellowship, minus Gandalf, got out from the Mines, and somewhere to their right a baby began to cry. Spike began growling again, muttering something about "What kind of a git brings a damn _baby_ to watch a damn _movie_?" Unfortunately, Constantine could only agree with him, wincing as the baby's cries grew in volume and pitch.

**

When they emerged from the theatre, Spike raised an eyebrow at Constantine as several people could be seen sprinting out in front of them, shoving through the crowd, their eyes wild, mouth working, clawing at their throats, though no sounds came out. "What did you do?"

Constantine told them. Spike whistled appreciatively when he got to the bit where he described making the handphone-wielders think that they were inserting their handphones into their throats while it played Britney Spears ringtones. 

"Why not up the… " Spike made a graphic gesture. Giles rolled his eyes.

Constantine snickered. "That was for the bugger behind me whose 'phone went off near me ear." He pointed at one of the moviegoers who was staggering, whimpering, for the nearest toilet.

Buffy blinked. "Giles, is it wrong for me to actually feel satisfied that he did that?"

Giles adjusted his glasses. "I think in this case it was quite justified. You'd er, remove the spell in time, won't you?" He paused. "But take your time."

Spike smirked. "S' even better than rippin' off their heads."

"Thanks," Constantine mirrored the smirk.

"Did you do anything to the baby?" he asked curiously.

"Naw, but the parents'd get a nice shock when they get home and see what their bundle o' joy just changed into." Everyone, with the exception of Spike, turned slowly to stare at him with horrified expressions. He spread out his arms and grinned. "'ey, only kiddin'."

"Okay! Now we go to the Bronze," Willow chirped happily. "And eat dinner. I'm starved."

"Ahn says she left something in the Magic Box, so we'd have to stop by there for a bit first," Xander said. 

"Housekeys," Anya clarified. "I got a bit distracted by all the business we had today."

As they fell into step, walking with the slightly dazed gait of people just out of a movie, Spike considered going to walk next to Buffy and Dawn, but wondered if it would be pushing his luck. In any case, the two of them – plus Willow and Anya – were all arguing about whether Legolas or Aragorn were 'cuter'. 

"He spoke nineteen times," Willow was telling Buffy happily.

"Will! You counted?" Buffy grinned at Willow. "I wonder if I can use the bow and arrows during Slaying. It looks _way_ cooler than stakes, and did you see the bit where he used the arrow like a dagger to kill that orc when the orc got too close? Giles? Can I?"

"Er, maybe," Giles said quickly, knowing better than to get involved in these sort of things, and trying to make it seem as though he was deep in conversation with Xander so the girls wouldn't try to make him take sides. For conversation, Spike found that left only Constantine, who was smoking and lagging a little behind the girls, so Spike joined him for cigarettes and also in an attempt to get on the magus' good side.

After establishing that they both liked about the same kind of music – especially when Spike admitted that he'd heard and liked the single 'Venus of the Hardsell' that Constantine's band, 'Mucous Membrane' had done. Down to beer, places in London, the underworld of magic… 

"I think you like Legolas partly because he's blond," Anya told Buffy.

"Blond? What's that got to do with it?" 

"Well, I read somewhere that girls like guys blond and blue-eyed." Anya grinned. 

"You got Xander." Willow pointed out with a grin.

"Hey, nothing wrong with being dark," Xander protested from in front. "Blond and blue-eyed, just look behind you, ladies."

Spike and Constantine exchanged a glance that spoke volumes about what they felt about this particular conversation.

"They smoke," Buffy wrinkled her nose. 

"So does Orlando Bloom – Legolas," Anya pointed out. "Though he's not blond and blue-eyed in real life."

"Well, I liked Legolas, not Orlando Bloom," Buffy grinned. "Did you see his hair? It stays so neat even after… everything!"

Spike privately thought Buffy's hair looked a thousand times better than Legolas', in any situation. He wondered what it'd look like in a wanton drape of golden threads on his black pillows, then had to pull his mind away from the link between 'Buffy' and 'bed' before his body threatened to betray him.

"Spike's hair stays the same after everything," Dawn said, a little loyally.

"Yeah, with the amount of things he puts on it – sometimes I think he glues the strands in place," Anya said critically, looking at the peroxide blond. Xander grinned; not warning his girlfriend against frank observations when said observations involved Spike.

"Nothin' wrong with my hair, demon-girl," Spike said mildly.

"It's the same problem he has with wearing the same sort of clothes every day," Buffy smirked. 

"Well, there _was_ that time about the Hawaiian shirt," Xander pointed out maliciously. Spike winced at the memory.

"Hawaiian shirt?" Constantine looked at Spike, then grinned as the mental image came up. 

Spike was saved from having to make a reply as they neared the Magic Box, and he saw the same black-robed magus leaving it unhurriedly, closing the door conscientiously. There was a click as the door seemed to lock itself.

"Hey!" Anya yelled. "You thief!"

The magus froze when he saw them, then let out an audible gasp, one hand pulling out a spider pendant from inside his robes that had begun to glow with a red light. "_Vel'uss mirar l'Mrim'ol_?" he said coldly, the dark hood turning as if he was looking at them one by one.

"I have to admit, he _does_ look like those ring wraith things," Buffy said, stepping forward to stand between the magus and the group. Constantine debated with himself for a moment, then remembered he had an obligation to Willow, at least, and walked up to stand deliberately next to Buffy.

"One moment," he told Buffy, then turned to the magus, recalling one of the translations that he'd asked Zaknafein for. "Humor me. _Phuul dos da'l'Qu'ellar d'Do'Urden_?"

"What did he say?" Xander murmured behind him.

"He asked if the elf was from the House of Do'Urden," Willow told her friend helpfully. "It's some private joke, I think."

The magus seemed to start in surprise, then he pulled back his hood to reveal an extremely handsome, elven face – not as comely as Zaknafein, Willow thought, blinking, knowing her heart was, for some reason, beating faster – but with a trace of possible dry humor in the half-smirk and the wicked amusement that made the eyes glitter. 

"_Rivvin ghil xuil zhaunil d'Ilythiiri_?" his musical voice fairly dripped contempt, as the keen eyes looked all of them over with the confident arrogance of one that was powerful and knew it. "_Xas, usstan uil d'Do'Urden_."

"Bloody hell, I wish I had me music box," Constantine sighed. "Didn't understand a friggin' word. Okay, we're probably going to get into a fight, since most of them like killin' humans. When me and the elf here start with the fireworks, go somewhere far, far away. I'd try not to set fire to the shop."

"I'd help," Willow stood next to him resolutely. "Buffy can take them away."

"Well, luv, if he gets away from me then you'd be their next hope, innit?"

"But I can help!" Willow insisted, wondering why she seemed to feel the urge to show off her magic in front of her mentor – and strangely enough, in front of the handsome elf. Besides, she'd come across a book on translation spells only last week. "Like I can get him to speak in English!" 

Before Constantine could stop her, she began to chant:

"Aphrodite, Mother of Love,

Hear your servant's plea,

Grant him learning of heart's words,

Grant him understanding of soul's truth."

"Not Aphrodite!" Constantine barked, but it was a bit late. There was the sound like a singing of a hundred nightingales in different notes that somehow managed to weld into harmony, then far-off, fading girlish laughter that was somehow mocking.

The elf stood transfixed, suddenly breathing heavily as if from some mental exhaustion, and then he turned a horrified look at Willow, who flinched guiltily, aware that something had gone wrong - again. When Willow moved, it seemed as though restraints had been pulled off the elf as well, and he spoke a word and planted his staff on the ground firmly, though with hands that visibly shook. Immediately, he vanished.

--

Notes and References:

__

Zaknafein: I never seem to be able to leave him out of my stories, despite best efforts to do so. Ah well. For a full history of his involvement with Constantine, go look at the story Rebel Heart.

__

Mucous Membrane: Unfortunately, I am not kidding about this. He did have a band named Mucous Membrane… 'why', I don't know. What kind of name is 'Presidents of the USA' anyway? Or that ant farm group? Or 'Arrogant Worms'? (Actually, I rather like the funny songs… 'Carrot Juice is Murder'…) 

__

Vel'uss mirar l'Mrim'ol: Who has the key

__

Phuul dos da'l'Qu'ellar d'Do'Urden: Are you from the House of Do'Urden [the 'House' here, Qu'ellar, refers to a noble House. Non-noble Houses are known as _el'lar_.]

__

Music box: During his adventure in 'Rebel Heart', Constantine possessed a music box that, when wound up and playing, allowed him to understand other languages and for others to understand him. It was taken away by the Dream King Daniel after Constantine fulfilled his quest.

__

Rivvin ghil xuil zhaunil d'Ilythiiri: Humans here with knowledge of drow (language)

Xas, usstan uil d'Do'Urden: Yes, I am of Do'Urden

__

Aphrodite: I was heartily tempted to translate this further into Ancient Greek, but decided I was too lazy.


	5. My world

Chapter 4

My world

"What happened?" Buffy gave voice to the foremost question in her thoughts. 

Constantine took a deep breath to calm himself. "Willow here just invoked the power of a Elder Goddess who still, incidentally, exists. Gods are a tenacious lot – most of the pantheons still endure even though most of their worshippers are gone. Their spells always have side effects. _Bloody hell_, why did I ever agree to get involved with you lot?"

"But she scared him off," Xander said, defending his friend.

"And I've asked spells of Gods before… Hecate, Freyja, Isis, Diana and all that," Willow stammered when she saw Constantine's expression darken further, like a worsening storm. "What's… what's wrong?"

"Ah hell! Now I see the bleedin' problem," Constantine muttered. "Willow, luv – when you ask them for power, they _give_ you the power, but in return they get just a little bit of a hold on your soul, see?"

"No… " Willow looked confused.

"Your soul is somethin' that controls your actions, gets your brain workin', see?" Constantine spoke patiently, though it was obvious that the patience was strained.

"No wait, I thought a soul's something that makes you do good and lets you love and such?" Buffy interrupted.

"Bloody _friggin' _hell. Where do you lot _come_ from?" Constantine ground out his cigarette with his heel with a bit more force than he'd intended. "Can we do this indoors, luv?"

Eventually, when they were in the Magic Box and had realized that other than a few spellbooks, nothing else was missing – not even the cash in the register, they'd settled down. With the exception of Anya, who kept muttering "Thief!" under her breath, darkly and looking at the shelves. 

"First. Do you think angels have souls, luv?" Constantine decided he really had to lead them through this one slowly. "Since they can 'love and such'?"

"Yes… "

"Lucifer Morningstar was an angel."

"Maybe he lost his soul going down to Hell," Buffy disagreed. 

Constantine snorted. "Let's try humans, then. Humans have souls, yes?"

"Yes… "

"Hitler had a soul, yes?" When Buffy didn't reply, Constantine pressed his advantage. "If not Hitler… then those common murderers? Those kids who went around shootin' kids in their own schools? Or all the people in the Medieval Age, who burned 'suspected witches' at the stake alive, or put them in barrels studded with nails, or… "

"But they could love!" Buffy insisted. Constantine had no idea why this was so important to her, and said so. 

"So what's your point, luv? What's wrong with not bein' able to love? Does that make you evil? What do you mean by love? D'you mean that if you have a soul, you're not evil?"

Helpless, Buffy's eyes dropped to the table, unable to answer the questions, and fixating on the last one. If she said that yes, no soul equaled evil, then she would have to agree that throughout mankind, there had been no evil deeds, because it was clear that souls inhabited human bodies. If she said no, no soul did not equate evil, then… then what? Why was she even arguing this point? 

Angel, it was Angel, wasn't it? Something that had made his change to Angelus tolerable, and Angelus' attitude towards her acceptable in her mind, was her desperate grasping of the idea that Angel with a soul was different from Angelus without one, and Angelus, without a soul, could not have loved her. And she remembered Dawn telling her once that Spike – soulless Spike – loved her. How could he love her when Angelus did not, and Angel had not loved her enough to stay?

"Then what's the difference between having a soul and not having one?" Buffy asked in a small voice.

"If you don't have a soul, luv, you're effectively brain dead," Constantine leaned back in his chair. "S'why vampires need a demon in them. It acts like a soul – 'cept that it gives them a natural lust for blood and violence, but that's 'bout it. It doesn't automatically make you go out and do things you lot term 'evil'. Sometimes I ain't sure if angels and demons actually _do _have souls – maybe what they are makes it unnecessary for them to have it. To me, they're all the same, just under different governments. The way I see it – good and evil's a choice you can keep makin'."

Buffy decided her only way out, without revealing to Constantine why she was so interested in the subject, was to change the subject. "So what does this have to do with Will?" Willow flinched in her chair, and the attention of everyone turned to her – except for Spike's, who had guessed why Buffy had asked the question, and was marveling at the fact that she had not stormed out in tears, or tried to leave. 

"How many of the Elder have you called on before, Willow?" Constantine stared at Willow. "Scratch that. How many different _pantheons_ have you called on? Norse, Greek, all that."

"Er… er…" Willow started counting with trembling hands, then found she couldn't recall all of them.

"There was at least five before you stopped," Constantine sighed. "So there's a lot of Gods who have a hold on your soul. Or 'control' on your soul, if you'd rather – and this control extends to what you do, see?"

Willow did see, and now understood why she was so drawn to magic, to give more and more of herself to spells and rituals, to call on a greater and greater variety of deities, sampling all the different flavors of arcane power. It was not a question on her self-discipline after all, was it? 

"Can she stop?" Giles adjusted his glasses worriedly. Something about his manner suggested shame, as though the older man regretted his lack of knowledge that could have prevented Willow from falling to this state. "Call back control to… to herself again?" 

"I don't know," Constantine said honestly. "I can ask around. I can tell you this – Willow, you're the only, bloody _stupid_ person I've ever known who called on so many different Elder Gods freely – not even from the same damn _pantheon_ – for power. It's why you've got so much of it I can feel it leakin' out from here – but soon it'd burn you out." 

"Can you find a cure before it does?" Xander asked anxiously. Willow permitted herself a tiny smile – even when she was a danger to them, her friends were rallying. 

"I can ask too," Spike volunteered. "Got contacts, demon world."

"And the rest of us can look in the books," Buffy chipped in. "Or go try and see where this elf is, so maybe we can remove the spell."

"One question. What were you saying about Aphrodite?" Anya asked curiously. When everyone looked at her, Anya grinned and continued. "She's a friend of mine. Could say that at one time we had an agreement. The vengeance business was very closely tied to hers."

"So what is a likely side effect of calling on her?" Constantine asked patiently.

"Love, I suppose," Anya shrugged. "She wasn't one for creating hate and all that. It sort of lessens her power, and she didn't find the other emotions like sorrow and all that interesting." Anya grinned at Xander. "Though lust, on the other hand…"

"Not now, Ahn," Xander said placatingly.

"Oh gods!" Willow clapped her hand to her mouth. "What have I done?"

"You can hope that it didn't work, luv," Constantine said dryly, "But _somethin' _made the elf run off, and I doubt all of us actually could frighten him, since the general opinion of them dark elves is that humans have the approximate value and ability of snails. And you asked for a spell of _understandin'_, not for intimidation."

Buffy and Spike looked at each other. Buffy spoke first. "So there's going to be a repeat of that 'Let my Will be Done' business?" She glared at Spike, daring him to speak, but he simply grinned at her. 

"_I _didn't think there was anything wrong with that spell," Dawn blurted out from where she had been quietly listening to everyone. 

"Dawnie…" Buffy said warningly.

"I found a _lot_ wrong with having demons chasing after me everywhere," Xander pointed out. "There's only one demon-girl for me… " He and Anya exchanged fond looks. Dawn mimed being sick out of their sight.

**

Nalfein was breathing heavily when he re-entered the dubious safety of his crypt, giving his wards only a minimal check before going down the stairs, nearly stumbling in his haste, then sitting down next to the components and closing his eyes. He tried to push his mind into the calming depths of meditation, but alluring images of the human female mage, with her fiery hair, kept breaking his concentration. 

Damnation! She had certainly done _something_ to him to make him feel this way, and it was quite likely that it had not totally worked, since he was aware that something had been done to warrant this abrupt torrent of emotions made all the more acute for their unfamiliarity. Or perhaps he had just been overtrained as a mage, or that being a Mage Lord had its advantages. 

There was one certainty – he _had_ to see the female again. To drown in her green eyes that seemed so full of cheer and innocence, so fascinating because of their lack in his life and the society he had come from - her face seeming all the more attractive to him without the icy, sculpture-like perfection of elven features. To taste those soft, red lips – no doubt they would put all the wine he had ever tasted to shame, or any other delicacy… To make her scream for him under the night as he took her… or perhaps if she would make him…

Nalfein shuddered convulsively, and bit his lip. He had to try a dispelling spell before the images consumed him. Trying to call on his teachings, that humans were of a status worse than slaves, a species inferior both in intellect, appearance, life-lengths and accomplishments – hadn't managed to cool his ardor, and he was getting desperate.

He tried all the dispelling spells he was aware of until he exhausted himself, but nothing had worked. It was almost as if there was some entity on this world that was preventing him from doing so, and he was trying to bring down an impenetrable adamantite wall with little pebbles. Wearily, Nalfein retraced his wards, not even retaining the strength to recast the sunlight-sight spell on himself, and, slumping down onto the ground, slept like a stone, dreaming tortured dreams.

**

[_Dear Diary_,]

Willow paused in her writing to gather her thoughts, looking with unseeing eyes out into the darkness from her window. She was seated at Joyce's old desk in Joyce's old room, guilt-stricken, even though… 

[_Today I messed up yet another spell while trying to impress. I am so pathetic. I think I may have made someone fall in love with me – though love must be rather worthless indeed if it can be commanded this way. Still, I now suppose all those stories about love philters and spells must have some backing behind them, if the Gods can so easily mess with this strongest of emotions._

I'm in deep trouble, certainly. I was going to call on Aphrodite again to cancel her work, but Constantine gave me such a comically incredulous look that I nearly laughed at him. 

"Call on an Elder to do somethin' that would lessen her power? Luv, did your ma drop you on your head when you were a kid?"

I asked him whether I could ask another God to undo it, or just try to undo it without any God-help, and he sighed at me and asked me if I had been listening to him about what calling on Gods would do to my soul. "The less the better, luv – and I doubt they can actually cancel another's dirty work, 'ey?" Also, he told me to stop thinking that magic could solve every 'single bleedin' problem', and reminded me that usually magic created its own 'bleedin' problems'. 

Went on to say something about how if it was such an all-healing antidote, mages would have used it long ago to heal the Ozone layer, clean up pollution, radiation, poverty, AIDS, and make 'soddin' peace on earth'. He's right, and I hate that he's right.

No one's sure what to do now. It's all such a mess! We don't know what the mage is here for, or why he had broken into the Magic Box, unless it was only for the spellbooks, but Constantine said he doubted that the mage would cross worlds just for spellbooks, and even Giles had said he didn't think those books were actually extremely powerful. He keeps all the powerful ones somewhere safer, and none of those were missing.

We don't know if we can cancel Aphrodite's spell. Giles suggested asking Aphrodite nicely instead of demanding, but Constantine sneered at that and said that her response to 'please' and 'thank you very much' would still be 'No', though there might be a few 'sincerely' and maybe 'faithfully-bloody-yours' somewhere around. I don't know which to listen to. Constantine is my mentor now, but Giles has always been my voice of guidance. I think I have to trust Constantine.

I didn't even intend for it to happen! It had been listed as a translation spell – Giles and Constantine looked at the spellbook and agreed there wasn't any warning about side effects, but Spike had said that the Goddess' name was enough of a warning. He seems offended that I've done it again, and cast another love spell, though I think he's more annoyed that it wasn't on him and Buffy again this time than that I've meddled with someone else's feelings.

Also, we don't know if we can recover my control over my soul. Giles is exhausted with the late hour, but he's still at the Magic Box looking through the books with Xander and Anya, even though the two of them clearly had other plans. Buffy and Spike went off to patrol, and to see if they could find where the mage was hiding. Dawn's asleep in the next room - Gods, I hope the mage doesn't show up here – and Constantine's tranced himself downstairs. Said he'd no time to travel physically, considering the mess that's happened, and he'd try manifestations instead. Apparently it was Meri's idea.

It's quite ruined the happy I got from the movie. I'd have to watch it again after all this – if it ever ends. Why am I so stupid?

After Oz, I've wanted love so much, and now that I've gotten it, I don't want it. Not this way. But it's so very tempting to leave it as it is – if this elf could turn into a helper like Spike – and he's so very handsome… even more than Legolas… 

I cannot. Love that is compelled from a spell isn't love at all. Is it? 

-Willow Rosenberg]

Willow found that she was sobbing, and she closed her diary, hid it in her drawer, and buried her face in her hands. Someone knocked on the door, and she hastily wiped away her tears. "Come in."

Constantine opened the door and leaned on the frame, clearly spent as he yawned and rubbed his eyes. He became more alert when he saw her eyes and nose, reddened from crying, and he crossed over to her and enveloped her in a bear hug. "Shh, luv, don't cry. You didn't know. Christ."

"But you said… " Willow burst into a fresh round of sobs. "I'm so sorry!"

"Luv, sometimes me tongue wags faster than me brain," Constantine told her, irritated at himself. He had to remember that she was still a teenager – and she _really_ hadn't known better. Not to mention that he'd done worse things than just a stupid love spell, knowing fully the consequences… 

"No, you were right… now what can I do?" Willow wailed. 

"Just a lapse of judgement," Constantine murmured. "Lord knows I do _that_ too damned often – and usually, I _do _know better. I've cast more foolish things than soddin' love spells, luv – you just gave me a bad shock just now, and I'm a cranky, nervous senile git who doesn't like to be surprised in his old age. Pot callin' the bleedin' kettle black, 'ey?"

Willow looked up at him, then begin to giggle through her sobs. "You're… you're not a cranky… nervous senile git."

"Thanks, luv," Constantine grinned wickedly as he ruffled her hair. "I'm a cranky, _crabby_ nervous senile old git who should watch where his tongue goes one o' these days, then."

Willow laughed, sorrow fleeing in the blaze of its opposite, then when she subsided, she smiled a little, timorously. "Do you want coffee?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

**

"Oh no, not you!" Willy, bartender of a demon bar and Sunnydale's snitch, squeaked when he saw the Slayer advancing towards him inexorably. Demons that were in her way judiciously got out of it very quickly and pretended they didn't notice her, though some glared at Spike, whose cocky swagger clearly said that he was looking for a fight. Still, with the Slayer beside him, those who usually wouldn't hesitate to give it to him did so. 

"Oh yes, me," Buffy leaned over the grimy counter. "Now. Do you know of a dark elven mage with a dragon staff?"

"I don't know of no dark elves, Slayer," Willy said hastily, relieved that her inquiries, this time, did involve nothing that he knew of, and the relief made him a bit more forthcoming. "But mages, I know about that. Something fried several vampires and did something horrible to some others – we had to dust them… "

"What?" Spike blinked. _Had_ to?

"You should've seen, Spike," Willy's voice dropped. "It was horrible! One poor bugger was bleeding from _everywhere_ – you wiped off a bit of the blood from the skin and it got covered again after a few seconds. There was another one whose body got _rearranged_, like one of those modern art things like eyes moved to the chest, mouth moved to the right hand – fair mad with pain – and two of them had been gouging at each other until there wasn't anything recognizable left except the head and the bit over the heart… "

"And then there was the remains of some G'arthax demon clan found ripped to shreds in their part of the sewers, like they'd tried to eat their own bodies up in some madness… and the Dquar in the crypt…"

Spike whistled in grudging admiration. That was rather impressive.

"It's magic at work, Slayer," Willy said grimly. "And it's like nothing we've seen before, so… "

"It's the dark elf," Spike said, "Met the bloke. Had to run."

"What did he look like?" Willy asked, sounding interested. Spike was aware that most of the pub was listening.

"Wearin' black robes, hood, holding a dragon staff. Under the hood, black skin, white hair, pointy ears," Spike said curtly. He had no quarrel with a lot of the patrons here, and there was no harm in their knowing. "Can throw fireballs, lightnin' bolts. You see him, you run, hopefully he won't follow."

Willy frowned. "I've heard that some vampires saw something like that – black robes, at least – in the cemetery. Crypts."

Buffy sighed. "Now _that_ was obvious. Why do all these things love the cemetery? Isn't there any better real estate around here?"

"You going to kill it, slayer?" Willy asked hopefully.

"Going to try, Willy."

**

"We can't fight magic, Slayer," Spike told her as they left the pub.

"That's why we're going for help," Buffy replied dryly. "Since the elf knows us, we might as well stay away from it and fetch Giles and the rest of the gang to my house. Don't want to wake up Dawnie for this – she's got a test tomorrow, and I don't dare leave her alone in the house."

Spike was silent – Buffy had half-expected him to make some jibe about her being a mother hen. She glanced at him curiously, but he wasn't looking at her – instead, looking up at the night sky that was clouded today so no moon showed. 

"Have you ever thought how insignificant we all are compared to the expanse up there? All the other worlds with their billions of things, all the huge stars. I wonder if that's why mankind wars, to try and prove their significance, that they can do _something_ noticeable – yet all wars eventually fade into history and turn into a few lines in a dusty book somewhere, maybe less than a footnote in time."

Buffy wasn't sure where _this_ had come from, and could only stare at him in surprise. 

"And to think, on all the other worlds, the same play is always acted out – love, hate, birth, life, death, happiness, sorrow. And we can try to believe that all we do is important in some way, but even here, you savin' the world and all so many times – seems that a lot of people do that frequently, unknown to us." 

"Probably a lot more out there savin' the bleedin' universe, or their dimensions or somethin', and thinkin' they're doin' a great job, though no one else may know of it and no one might actually care, in the big picture. Then you might wonder why the hell do you care how much life is worth to you, why not end it – not like anyone would'ha notice. And in our selfish manner we go on without bleedin' givin' a thought to all those out there who might be makin' sacrifices we'd never know or appreciate. And to some of us – all of it – all of the universe and all its worlds, all of its lives and deaths, loves and hatreds, all the plays - don't mean anythin' at all." 

Spike finally looked at her, and he had the same frightening expression of addiction that she had seen in the Magic Box today. "Do you know why it doesn't matter to me, Slayer?"

"Why, Spike?" she whispered, though she knew the answer.

"You are my world, Slayer."

--

Notes and References:

__

Vengeance business: Okay, it turns out that perhaps some people haven't actually watched Buffy but are reading this 'fic. Anya was once Anyanka, a cool, evil vengeance feminist demon who got changed into an annoying human when an AU Giles broke her amulet of power.

__

Let my Will be Done: This was a reference to the episode 'Something Blue', where Willow cast a spell which caused everything she wanted to come through. When she told Giles that 'you don't see' when he didn't seem to understand her pain at Oz leaving her, he proceeded to go gradually blind. When she snapped something about Buffy and Spike should get married because Buffy seemed to be spending more time with Spike (insulting him) than talking with her, they fell in love and began making arrangements for their wedding. When she accused Xander of being a 'demon magnet', demons began chasing after him. It was an extremely amusing episode.


	6. Cruelty in Sewers

Chapter 5

Cruelty in Sewers

Willow blinked when she followed Constantine down the stairs – there was a woman seated primly on one of the sofas. She had a short black hair that hugged her fair-skinned face closely in a bob, bright, kindly eyes and a sweet smile. Dressed in a demure maroon blouse and long black skirt, she looked like the first-grade teacher everyone would wish to have, understanding, with the smallest hint of a sense of humor, old enough to be motherly but young enough to still have great fun with. 

There was no indication of how she'd arrived here – no car outside, and it was too late for public transport… unless she walked? But Willow had never seen her before.

"This is Willow," Constantine was introducing. "Willow, this is… what name are you usin' now, luv?"

The woman chuckled at the quip. "You can call me Rose." 

"Um. Hi," Willow said sheepishly. "I uh, didn't hear anyone enter the house."

"She means none of her wards went off," Constantine said dryly. 

"The wards? Oh, they were finely made," Rose smiled at Willow, who blushed at the praise, "Though the clause – 'neither man nor woman, spawn of heaven, hell or earth' does not apply to me."

"Really?" Willow blurted out, then blushed again for being too forward.

Rose glanced at Constantine, who shrugged. "Didn't tell her anythin'."

"I am both man and woman," Rose said then, "And though the Doctor wanted to talk to you, John said you'd probably had enough of old men poking at you and your spells, so here I am." 

"Doctor?" Willow looked even more confused. "Both man and woman?"

"Sometimes Rose is Rose – the female side, and the side I like better, since she doesn't scold me – " Constantine smirked at Rose, "Or she is the male side, Doctor Occult, yet another grim bugger." His tone warned Willow not to ask any questions about this. "They're two different people altogether. She's here to 'splain things to you and your friends, so you might like to try locatin' them now. Either that, or you go make coffee for us, we talk, you go sleep, and we do it in the mornin'."

"I believe you said 'come now', John, and not 'come in the morning'," Rose said mildly. "We were working on something important and didn't particularly want to be disturbed."

"I'd call Giles," Willow said, ducking into the kitchen to make coffee. Constantine seated himself on the sofa, which was also his bed, and yawned again.

"When did you start taking mentors again, John?" Rose chuckled as she watched the sleepy girl bustle around the kitchen muttering about sugar. "You made so much noise over having Timothy Hunter."

"Ever since I got a new resident in here, luv," Constantine tapped his head. "Phoenix name of Meridian. Likes tryin' to boss me around. And Willow needs help."

"I can see that," Rose said gravely. "And as we agreed, I will save the explanation until all her friends arrive. It has been a while since we last met, John – and already you have, by accident, shaken the world again." She paused. "I was referring to Hell."

"Everyone seems to be givin' me flak for that," Constantine smirked. "He's a good choice, you have to admit."

"Too good, I would think. It may be that he was meant to be the choice," Rose mused, "By those higher than you or me."

"Since when did you turn into Mister Tall 'n Dark in a white turtleneck?" Constantine asked dryly, referring to the 'mysterious' figure in his life who occasionally showed up and spoke in cryptic sentences. Called himself the Phantom Stranger, and didn't seem to know how utterly stupid that name was… but since he was quite a bit more powerful than Constantine, he wasn't about to criticize. Not openly, at least.

"I am always myself, John Constantine," Rose smiled. 

"Thanks for comin', luv," Constantine murmured such that Willow wouldn't hear. "I appreciate it. Though I don't want to know how you got here from Poland in five minutes." 

"You're welcome, John… and yes, women will have their secrets," Rose replied, thanking Willow as the girl came in with two piping-hot cups of coffee. 

"Everyone's coming over soon," Willow said, sitting down next to Constantine. "Um. Giles said he'd heard of you."

"Did he now," Rose sipped her coffee.

Willow fidgeted, betraying her excitement. "He said you're one of the Council's listed most-powerful mages." 

"The Watcher's Council?" Rose looked at Constantine, who nodded. "Ah. I have heard of them." Her tone was neither approving nor disapproving, and for the next fifteen minutes she good-naturedly answered Willow's questions on Faerie and her magic, until the rest of the Scooby Gang showed up in Spike's DeSoto.

After introducing Rose to them, Constantine watched as they compared notes. Giles, Xander and Anya had not found anything in the books about Willow's condition, why the mage could be here, or Aphrodite's love spells except for a few vague references to Midsummer's Night's Dream. "It appears that the play was an interpretation of something that actually happened," Giles concluded, looking at Rose. "And… I've heard you've been to Faerie."

"And a dangerous place it is to the unwary," Rose agreed. "There may well be a counter in one of the Marketplaces – there are many reversal-herbs, but are you sure you'd wish hate on you, Willow, instead of love? You would still have been toying with this dark elf's emotions – and you might find that hatred would be all the more destructive to you and your friends, especially if he is so powerful."

"There's no clean cancellation?" Willow asked. 

"You could look – but it would be better that someone experienced in the ways of Faerie looked for you. I can only spare this time now to advise, then I have to return to Poland." Rose shot Constantine a chiding look, like one would scold a naughty child. "There are disturbances there caused by the ascension of the new Prince of Hell."

"Jarlaxle's making trouble here?" Constantine felt surprised.

"Not him, but there are others who are trying to break into this world – the would-be staging grounds of the Last Battle – and take from it its bound magic for their own purposes, to move against the Prince of Hell. One reason why they are close to breaking out is because someone disturbed the fabric of this world to exit from Hell… "

"All right, all right," Constantine held up his hands in surrender.

"Spike and me found that the elf's hiding out in the cemetery," Buffy said brightly, from too little sleep and too many emotional disclosures. "Everyone say 'd'oh'. And, he's been killing just about every demon or vampire who confronted him or got into his way." She described to them what Willy had told them.

"Which reminds me about today's newspaper," Giles held up a roll of paper and turned it to the front page, which showed the picture of a car that had been folded clean in half down the middle, like a piece of paper. The shattered pieces of the windows lay in a dark pool, probably of blood. "The official reason for this was 'car crash', but I think it quite… quite likely that the elf was the cause of this as well."

"The elf is – as Constantine has said – from another world," Rose nodded. "The elves of this world have not this sort of power – save perhaps Queen Titania or King Oberon, but they normally would have no truck with the mortal world. And I have never heard of dark-skinned elves… other than the two new inhabitants of the Dreaming." Again, she looked at Constantine. He grinned at her.

"They're friendly, luv – those there. Didn't recognize this elf's description – but there are so many bleedin' dimensions with different appearances. Not from their world, at any rate."

"About the Gods and your soul, Willow… " Rose finished her coffee and put down the cup. "There are a few solutions, though they may not work, and if they do, your power will be lessened."

"Anything," Willow said, feeling relieved. "I don't mind not having as much power as I have now, if all it'd do is hurt people." Rose smiled at this.

"Then you are a very considerate young lady… much more so than your mentor." She glanced at Constantine, who grinned impishly at her. 

"Either you choose just one God, and hope that he or she manages to wrest control from all the others – something that is not likely, since most of the Elder are weakened due to the current popularity of the Younger kin – or you renounce magic taken from the Gods and find your own style, without using spellbooks or at spells that need one to call on the Gods." 

"My own style?" Willow asked, feeling that the second choice seemed better.

"Most mages who do not follow Gods have their own styles of magic, luv. Rose and me, for example," Constantine told her. "Takes some research and talent. You have the talent already."

"But that's it? I just say I renounce them?" Willow said, disbelievingly. 

"Would that it were that easy," Rose said sympathetically. "They might only be willing to renounce their holds – with a price. And as to finding your own sort of magic – that might take longer still."

"What kind of price?" Buffy asked immediately. 

"Some may want errands performed – like summoning some creature – some might want you to fetch them things. They are bound to name a price, though the price of some may be too high to pay." Rose replied. "There is some hope here – there are many holds on Willow's soul, and so the prices are probably not too much for her. The Gods would hope that you would call on them again, and if they were to set a price that was high, there is little chance of that, would there?"

"You can do it, Will," Xander said encouragingly. "We'd all help you."

"But she can't remember all the Gods she's called on," Constantine pointed out. "So how's she to know who to pay?"

Rose grinned. "John – let her ask them. There is no harm in asking politely if you ask carefully. That is something you should remember before you immediately turn to your underhand methods."

"You make me sound like I always use 'underhand methods'."

"Don't you?" Rose asked serenely. "I know you far too well for my own liking. Now I have a last warning for all of you. Things may be trying to break through here on the Hellmouth, so you should be on watch for them. It may be that this elf is trying to bring about one of these breakings. Many of us have had to run around putting down these brush fires, and I doubt we can spare help for you here." She winked at Constantine. "That was one reason why I agreed to come in this form. Dr. Occult says that the next time he sees you, he'd strangle you with his own hands for having caused us so much trouble." Rose paused conscientiously. "Though I think he may have been jesting."

Constantine, who knew better than to presume the Doctor had a sense of humor, made a mental note to stay out of his way until he cooled down.

**

Nalfein woke at when the sun had already risen, called to consciousness by hunger. He ate some of his provisions mechanically as he considered what he had to do. One of those humans had the key – the spider had discovered it – and now the pendant seemed to be throbbing in fury that he hadn't done anything. Shaking, he hoped that his Goddess hadn't noticed that he had failed to deliver… 

His mind quickly returned to dwell on the girl. Nalfein wished he knew her name – though he had given her one – _Chath _– dark elven for 'fire'. The power of the word failed to even describe a fraction of her beauty or the magnificence of her personality – at once both kind and firm, loyal to her friends, compassionate, spirited and sunny, and best of all – innocent of all her virtues, so unlike anyone Nalfein had ever known. She was like a breath of fresh air, a sudden light in the darkness, a new Goddess totally different from the one whom the dark elves of his city were given to from their birth, this one vibrant, charming, vivacious, shunting away the darkness of the Spider Queen. 

Nalfein had no idea why he seemed to understand her so much – he seemed to know what she liked and how she would react to any given scenario, though he knew nothing of her past. It seemed as though he had been given awareness of her nature, but not her history – given erudition of her appearance, but not of her names. 

He tried to concentrate on the quest. He had to find the residences of all those he had seen – eight of them… _maybe he would see her in the process_ – and get the key from them – _maybe she had it_ – then use it with the components to call the Spider Queen – _perhaps the Queen would spare his new Goddess_. 

Frustrated with himself, Nalfein lashed out at one of the tombs with his magic and shattered it into little pieces. He had to complete this task, call the Queen to this earth – a Queen who had a hatred of surfacers, even humans… but no, Chath was human! 

Then, was he to give it up, and renounce all hopes of ever returning to Menzoberranzan? But what had he in Menzoberranzan? Life without living, power without authority, a power that was now, in the light of Chath – meaningless anyway. He could construct simulacra of her in the city, to do his bidding, but he would know that they were not her. 

So to forswear all two and a half centuries of belief and teaching for a human, whose normal life span was only a fraction of how long his could be? 

Better to get the Key for the Queen. He had to find it… 

Find a gift for Chath worthy of her. Nalfein sat down, feeling dizzy. This had to be the emotion unnamed in the dark elven tongue – love. For all his life he had agreed that it was a weakness and hence undesirable, with the easy complacency of one that had never known it and quite likely never would, but now when he burned with it, he could not deny it. He did not know how to even begin to control the emotion, or what to do with it other than a pressing urge to make Chath feel the same way. He looked to his newfound knowledge of her to try and see what gift she would like to possess, which would, perhaps, turn her heart to him – just a little. He would not ask more –yet.

**

When everyone finally got some sleep, they met up again the next day at the Magic Box to put down the names of the possible Gods that Willow had called up. Spike and Buffy were patrolling the sewers, cautiously, with an invisibility spell they could activate with a word if they needed to get away. Dawn was in school, and Xander was, as usual, at his construction job. 

Willow was quite certain that she had only ever called Goddesses, so it narrowed down the list a little, but not by much. Constantine mostly feigned sleep in a chair until Willow, occasionally helped by Giles, showed him her list, in which he would run critical eyes through it and suggest more names which she would find that she had accidentally missed. How much did this man know, anyway?

Eventually, they had a sufficiently complete list, and Giles excused himself from the customers to go to the training room with Constantine and Willow to call their awarenesses up one by one – a job that Constantine estimated could probably take the rest of the week, if they didn't rush it.

Willow carefully drew a protective circle, and then began to carefully summon the first on her list. Only the awareness, such that she could speak to her and ask her to name her terms – not the presence, which would be far too dangerous of the Goddess decided to get _really_ angry. As it was, Constantine silently told Meri to keep watch in case that happened and they all had to bugger off.

The summoning spell was a standard one that mostly involved a lot of fawning and blanks for the names of the Gods. A bleedin' fill-in-the-blanks oral form, was John's opinion, but if it worked, he didn't care.

It did – the first Goddess, Aphrodite, chuckled when she heard Willow out, and then spoke in a voice not unlike a hundred nightingales singing – songs that seemed to meld into words. "Very well, but my price is this – none of my creatures the doves must you kill, none of my spells must you unmake, and find me… hmmm, a trifle – Godiva chocolates in the shape of hearts."

"Oh! Then the love spell… " Willow realized her mouth had run away again, and blushed.

"Love spell, mortal? You have done no love spells in my name." The Goddess seemed amused, as her awareness retreated from the room.

Willow gave Constantine and Giles a look of utter relief. "It wasn't a love spell!"

"You did _somethin'_ to the elf, luv," Constantine pointed out.

"We might have been jumping to… to conclusions," Giles said, cleaning his glasses vigorously with relief. "Perhaps it was actually fear that she had managed to cast a spell on him, or… or perhaps the extra knowledge." 

Constantine grunted, but did not disagree. Privately, he felt that Aphrodite, though probably speaking the truth, had hidden some of it as well.

**

Buffy and Spike had been wandering around the sewers for hours, and had not met the dark elf. She began longing for hot chocolate, a bubble bath and sleep, not necessarily in that order. Spike, by her side, was abnormally silent, and the situation was beginning to remind her of patrols with Angel. A bit of violence, some stolen kisses, then good-byes, most of those with nothing said at all. At that time, she'd thought that maybe it had been because their love had been beyond words – or something suitably romantic – but now she wondered if it was actually because they had nothing to say to each other. 

While patrols with Spike – up to now, at least – usually were just one unending conversation of insults and banter. She'd taken it for granted – such that now the silence was getting unbearable. "Say something, Spike!" She stopped and turned around, hands on her hips.

Spike blinked, the puppy-like expression of melting adoration turning into surprise. "What?"

This seemed to remind her of this morning's conversation with Dawn. She'd complained of Spike's one-track mind to Dawn, and Dawn had, after making up some horrible puns based on Buffy being Spike's 'world', said something about Spike's reactions to her were totally based on her own one-tracked attitude to him. Buffy protested that she didn't have a one-tracked attitude to Spike. Dawn said well _yes_, other than acting like he was an evil master vampire who was only being nice to her to try and get into her pants, what else was there? 

Buffy had responded by asking Dawn if there _were_ any other ways to treat an 'evil master vampire who wanted to get into her pants'. Dawn, predictably, had defended Spike, saying he wasn't 'evil', reminding her what the Judge had said of him, that Spike 'reeked of humanity'. Relentlessly, she'd gone on to say that only Angelus had been the one who had been pure evil.

Buffy had said well, if you trust the opinion of a demon on what was evil. This was an old argument, so they managed to get it over with quickly, then Dawn had asked her to try surprising Spike by changing her attitude. Frequently, if she wanted to. Which would be, Buffy admitted to herself, rather fun. It was like twisting the knobs on a machine to see what the machine would do… Rather cruel, perhaps – but she didn't have to _act_ different attitudes in front of Spike. Perhaps she should just reveal to him more of her own attitudes – those she presented to other people, or just, in the darkness of dreams, to herself.

"What?" Spike repeated his question, breaking through her thoughts.

She decided to get back on him for all the jibes he had ever launched in her direction by pushing him so far off his mental rails that he'd never only have 'one attitude' to her any longer. "Nothing!"

As she expected, this only caused Spike to get even more curious. "Say something? What do you want me to say?" 

"You've already said something," Innocent-Buffy said ingenuously. "We can go on now." She turned to go, but he closed the distance between them with vampiric speed and spun her around to face him. Eyes wide, so close to him, the realization of how gorgeous he was hit her harder than ever. 

He was saying something. "Look, if it was about last night, I'm sorry if I… "

"Shh," Buffy said, reaching forward and pressing her forefinger on his lips. Immediately, he froze. 

Now what? 

Mischievous-Buffy came into play, due in part to her need for destressing, frustration at Willow's problems, and too little sleep last night. Letting a wicked smile arc her own lips upward, she rubbed her finger on his mouth, dipping her painted nail into the soft incline of his lips to the mouth, then to the end of the mouth and pressing lightly. 

"Slayer… "

Splaying her hand on his cheek, she pulled down his head insistently. His lips parted, begging for a kiss, and for a moment she was extremely tempted, but remembered that she was supposed to do something he didn't expect. So at the last moment she raised her head and instead, licked the bridge of his nose like a cat. Spike growled in frustration, and tried to move to capture her mouth with his, but she dodged with a giggle and licked the end of his mouth instead – then the other end when he turned. When he tried to use his hands to hold her in place, she swatted them away, scratching him, and ran her tongue over his upper lip. Spike's response, another growl, ended in a whimper when she did the same to the lower lip. 

Okay, this was probably getting too cruel. Buffy was beginning to feel sorry for the vampire, and besides, she could feel he was going to snap soon. She pushed him away, and he looked disappointed, as if he'd thought that she was having second thoughts and was about to launch into a tirade about how it was 'wrong'. Before he said anything, she smirked at him, then blew him a kiss.

That was going a bit _too_ far, even in her opinion. Spike lunged at her, and she dodged out of the way instinctively. Something made her laugh in his face and run. Buffy heard his snarl of frustration behind her, and ran faster. 

Was it wrong that she felt so elated now? 

At least she had something new to tell Dawn later. Though she had a feeling that if Spike caught her in his current mood, then it'd quickly turn into a tale that would _not_ be suitable for a fifteen-year-old, impressionable girl. 

**

"What's our shoppin' list so far?" Constantine asked. He wanted to go and eat something, and Willow had shown no signs of stopping. 

Willow gave him a piece of paper that Giles had told her to write the items down on.

"One box of heart-shaped Godiva chocolates for Aphrodite… an obsidian statuette of a cat for Bast – eh, no surprise, that… an owl feather for Athena – like she can't get it herself – a white-gold pendant of a dolphin for Yemana… a friggin' cherry blossom sapling for Ukemochi. A black hound for Hecate, to wear a bleedin' collar with her name on it in ancient Greek alphabets." Constantine shook his head. "All this is crap!"

"They might be listening," Willow grinned at him.

"Good." Constantine said nastily. "Well, luv, so far you haven't seem to have called on anyone actually associated with black magic."

"I didn't dare to dabble in that," Willow agreed. "Though if you hadn't become my mentor – I… I might have, eventually."

Constantine looked relieved. "Luck, luv." He made a show of looking at the clock outside. "Is it lunchtime already?"

Willow started. "Oh! I forgot all about lunch!" She stood up quickly and smiled sheepishly. "My treat."

His objective accomplished, Constantine followed Willow as she led him out of the Magic Box. When they'd walked just a short distance down the road, they were met by Buffy, approaching on a run, who smelled slightly of sewers and was laughing to herself. She subsided into giggles when she met them.

"Buffy! Weren't you patrolling with Spike?" Willow asked her friend, mystified.

Buffy stared at her, then began to laugh again. Finally, she took Willow by the arm and led her a little farther away from Constantine, then began whispering into her ear. From the delighted exclamations like "You didn't!" and "Buffy, you are so evil!" from Willow, Constantine guessed that this was something he wanted to know.

: _Snoop,_ : Meri accused.

: _Who was the one who looked through all my memories without askin'? _: 

: _Buffy just teased Spike unmercifully for a short while, that's all. _: Meri seemed rather smug. : _Spike is extremely confused now. Hah!_ :

: _Why are you feeling happy for her? _: Constantine rather sympathized with the lovesick vampire. He watched as Willow and Buffy dissolved into giggles.

: _You wouldn't understand… male. _: Meri too, began to giggle.

Constantine sighed. 

**

Willow went upstairs to her room, humming to herself. She felt as though she'd seen the first gleam of hope for the first time in a while, and it was making her feel light-headed. Constantine was downstairs, muttering darkly about girls and their wicked pranks – Dawn, Willow and Buffy had formed a conspiracy on Spike. Though privately, Willow thought it _was_ rather cruel… 

Spike's invitation to the house had been revoked. Predictably, when he'd shown up later, he'd gotten angry – though the anger certainly turned into something else later. Willow didn't particularly want to know what Buffy had said or done when she was in her room and he was in the tree overlooking it, but the resulting snarls of frustration had grated on Constantine's nerves. His "_friggin' _cut out the _friggin' _music of the _friggin' _night! Some people are tryin' to get some _bleedin' _beauty sleep!" had caused the three girls to collapse into laughter. 

Spike, if he was still there, was quiet now, at least. Willow snickered as she opened the door. The vampire was really going to suffer.

She frowned as she saw something on her bed – a bouquet of twelve long-stemmed champagne roses, deep red in hue, their small blossoms only just beginning to open. With trembling hands she picked up the card that had been attached to the roses with a maroon ribbon. It was blank, save for a beautifully drawn picture of a dragon in black ink, the wings outstretched as if to fly.

Willow dropped the card in shock, backing away from the roses, then fairly leaped for the door. "Constantine!"

--

Notes and References:

__

Rose and Doctor Occult: These are friends – actually, acquaintances – of John Constantine. Since I still can't locate issue two of Trenchcoat Brigade, I don't know very much about them other than they're quite powerful, and they share the same body – i.e. only one of them can appear at once, while the other one goes somewhere else, due to some sacrifice they made sometime. Hence, though they are in love, they can never meet physically. Doctor Occult – not his real name, of course – is part of the Trenchcoat Brigade, a group of four who wear trenchcoats – the Phantom Stranger, Mr. E, John Constantine, Dr. Occult – who are sort-of minding Tim Hunter of the Books of Magic.

__

Phantom Stranger: He's 'Mister Tall 'n Dark in a white turtleneck'. Black trenchcoat, mysterious origins – some say he was an angel who fell from the Silver City due to refusing to choose between good and evil. He likes to show up unexpectedly and talk cryptic – sort of like Angel, come to think of it. To quote Constantine in Books of Magic 1 in reference to a misjudgment on the Phantom Stranger's part – "there are beds of kelp smarter than you!"

__

Faerie: Faerie is one of the many dimensions, or worlds, that are tied to this one. Ruled by Queen Titania and King Oberon. Mostly they make appearances in the Books of Magic. I dislike Titania. William Shakespeare did appear in Faerie in one of the Sandman books, but I can't remember much about it – only flipped through that one.

__

The Dreaming: For those who still don't understand, the Dreaming is the place where everyone goes when you sleep, ruled by the current Dream King (Dream), Daniel, one of the members of the Endless who wield a lot of power and have their own tasks. Destiny, the oldest, in his gardens, reading the happenings of the world in his book which is chained to his arm. Desire in her flesh-and-blood capital, her twin Despair in her world of mirrors. Delirium, who used to be Delight, a girl who speaks in many-colored speech bubbles and sometimes turns into fishies. Destruction, who abandoned his duties to wander the worlds. And the second oldest, Death, cheerful, who looks like a pretty girl with pale skin and black hair, a tattoo of a spiral under one eye, and who wears a pendant of a silver ankh. Go read Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, or the two Death Books – the High Cost of Living or Time of your life.

__

Spider Queen: Sigh, I think I shouldn't actually put in so many crossovers into this. Heh. Okay, a crash course on Forgotten Realms dark elves. Basically, according to the books – as well as standard Dungeons and Dragons - they are one of the evil races, who were forced into the huge maze of tunnels and caverns of the Underdark when they were defeated by the surface elves. There they basically follow either one of a few Gods – the most popular ones are Lloth, the Spider Queen, Eilistraee, Vhaeraun and Ghaunadaur. 

Lloth-worshipping cities are female-dominated – i.e. females have all the power and males are treated as an inferior species. All females – noble-born, at least – are priestesses. Lloth society is chaotic, destructive and yes, evil. There are three classes – fighter, mage, priestess, and a clear line between nobles and commoners, noble Houses and non-noble Houses. The House of Do'Urden, which Nalfein belongs to, is a noble House.

__

The Judge: End of Season 2 Buffy – this demon who touched people and if they were not evil, they died. The only one who managed to withstand his touch – being 'pure evil' – was Angelus.


	7. Seeing Fit

Chapter 6

Seeing fit

Willow fairly flew down the stairs in her haste, and so nearly ran into a bleary-eyed Constantine. "What?" he demanded, then he took a better look at her face, "Calm down, luv. What's wrong?"

She grabbed his hand and pulled him with her up the staircase, and into her room. Footsteps behind her informed her that Buffy and Dawn had showed up as well. "Will?" Buffy asked anxiously.

Willow pointed wordlessly at the bed, and the roses, dark, rich spots of color on white sheets. Constantine sauntered up to it and glanced at the card, then picked it up carefully, holding the edges. He turned it over, frowned at the blank side, then looked at the dragon again. Buffy and Dawn joined him, nearly stepping over each other in their haste to look.

"So," he said finally, when the girls had finished. "What's wrong?"

"I didn't put them there," Willow bit her lip. 

"If you didn't change the clause on your wards, luv, it wouldn't have disallowed this," Constantine pointed out. "Dark elf magic."

"You think it was the elf?" Buffy asked, all business now.

"Unless Red here – " Willow had confided with Constantine her favorite nickname, "has admirers also versed in magic who sign off with a picture that looks like the friggin' elf's staff with amendments."

"I don't have any other admirers," Willow said, then frowned. "Any admirers at all! Aphrodite said it wasn't a love spell!"

"It _wasn't_ a _love_ spell," Constantine understood the Goddess' logic now. "It was a _translation_ spell wot had bleedin' side effects, I reckon."

"Oh." Willow looked stunned, then her face crumpled and she began to sob again.

"Downstairs, hot chocolate," Constantine told the Summers sisters, and they nodded to him, ushering Willow out of the room and making comforting noises. When they were gone, Constantine walked around the room carefully, then looked outside just to make sure. No dark elves that he could see. He sent an invitation to another place with his mind.

Black smoke formed at the foot of Willow's bed, which coalesced quickly into the black panther. It looked at him inquiringly.

"Just so I'd know – any dark elf been in this room lately?"

The panther sniffed, then padded around the room, and then shook its large head. It put two paws on Willow's bed, then patted the roses gingerly.

"Yeah, I know they're roses… eh, you mean a dark elf touched it recently?" The panther nodded. "Ah… thanks luv." The panther purred, padded up to him and rubbed against his knees with affection, then disappeared into smoke.

"Friggin' elves," Constantine muttered, and walked out of the room, unaware that he was being watched. Invisible, the Wizard's Eye followed him down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he sat down on his sofa (he thought of it as his now, for some reason). Willow looked a lot calmer now and she smiled sheepishly at him.

"Sorry for waking you up."

"S'okay." Constantine rubbed his eyes. "I had a bit of help just now, found that there hasn't been any elf in your room, but a dark elf has handled the roses."

"So they're from him," Buffy said softly. 

Willow smiled hesitantly. "Suddenly I feel like baking chocolate chip cookies." At Constantine's questioning look, she added, "I bake to soothe my conscience whenever one of my spells go wrong." There was another pause. "Wish I could get some to him… I feel so awfully guilty, even… even after everything."

"Well, it's not like it's a bomb or something," Dawn said, trying to cheer Willow up, "So it's no biggie, right?"

"Twelve champagne roses long of stem, no words on a white card." Willow murmured. She shuddered. "He understood. He _knew_."

"What?" Buffy blinked, feeling the discrepancy people sense when they realize they're on the wrong brain frequency as someone else. "Who knew what?"

"When Oz left me something I tried – for a short while – was to build a mental image of the 'perfect boyfriend', who'd give me all the things Oz never had." Willow felt the tears welling up again, and forced them down. "It didn't help – because I couldn't really think of a lot of things he had never given or offered me. Maybe it was because I was too… "

"So this roses thing was one of them?" Dawn interrupted before Willow went into another guilt trip.

"Yeah – I like champagne roses, and I was heavily into metaphors then, so 'long stemmed'– uncut, nearly natural, for 'natural' love, and… and no words, because I think words of love should… should be spoken aloud where the other can tell if you rehearsed them or if it came from the heart. Words on paper – you can slowly think of the message and butter it up so much that it loses a lot of the raw sincerity." Willow was flushed with embarrassment now. "I'm so pitiful."

"No, that's _very_ sweet," Dawn said loyally, "I wish my boyfriend would give me that." At the baleful look Buffy shot her, Dawn added hastily, "When I get one. If I get one. _Buffy_! Stop looking at me like that!"

Constantine chuckled. "Your little sis has to grow up sometime, luv."

"Don't I know it," Buffy muttered, then turned her attention back to Willow. "Do you think it was a lucky guess?"

"Lucky guess, me arse," Constantine said thoughtfully. "'learnin' of heart's words, understandin' of soul's truth'. I think what the spell did was to give him knowledge of yourself. What you want, what you like, what you don't like – all that. Maybe it even gave him knowledge of every bleedin' thing you know, so that he knows the human language now."

Willow felt slightly sick. Knowledge of herself? All the hidden desires or opinions that one kept from the outside world so as to preserve the innate sense of Self, to keep one sane… known to another? She heard everything else going on around her dimly, as though she were in a trance.

"I'm going to make more hot chocolate," Dawn said decisively, grabbing Willow's now-empty cup. "It'd make you feel better." 

"What kind of translation spell is that?" Buffy was demanding of Constantine. 

"It did translate… though maybe not what she was intendin' it to do, luv." Constantine replied mildly. "Her heart's words from unshaped thoughts into knowledge."

"So that elf knows _everything_ about her? As in, her entire life? Would it know about us too?" 

Willow wished she could shut out the words. All the words. Silence was a bliss that was denied to her as surely as redress and atonement, it seemed.

"Until that point of time, probably," Constantine replied, "Maybe give or take her actual history."

"I have to tell Giles." Buffy reached over and hugged Willow, though Willow didn't respond. "Hang in there."

Constantine studied Willow. The blank, shocked look on her face reminded him of some animal caught in the headlights of a car, where the rush and the blaze of lights renders it still, frozen, unresponding. "Red? Luv?"

"He knows," Willow's pained eyes met his. 

"Yeah… so?"

"It's… it's like a violation!" Willow burst out. "Everything I've ever kept from people!"

"Look at it this way, luv," Constantine said firmly. "I don't think he's going to shout it out to everyone, okay? He's here for somethin', we find out what he's here for, if it's relatively harmless, we give it to him, and he sods off to where he came from. End of problem."

"But what if he doesn't? What if the spell made him love me?" Willow shivered, and asked a question that had been bothering her. "Can love be compelled?"

"Normally, I'd say no," Constantine wished he was elsewhere, drinking himself under a table. A nice, brainless activity with little consequences except to himself. "But now luv – I'm not sure. Maybe he's tryin' to get on your good side, and then… "

"Don't say it," Willow said wearily. Another bad thought hit her. "If he knows what I know, what if he starts calling on all sorts of Gods too?"

"Them dark elves usually only keep to one," Constantine said reassuringly. Actually, he had no idea as to the actual theological state of dark elves, his contact in the Dreaming being unwilling to discuss his society, but he didn't particularly care.

"But… "

"You're tired, Red. It'd look better in the mornin'." 

Willow sighed. If she slept tonight she was sure that she'd have nightmares. "Will it ever come?"

"Sleep," Constantine said, and her eyes closed slowly, as if pulled down by heavy weights, and she slumped down on the sofa, slumbering at last.

Dawn approached, holding a cup of hot chocolate. "Oh great. Who's going to drink it now?" she complained. "And how are we going to get her upstairs?"

"I'd drink the hot chocolate, luv – and your sis can take her up. You go help her with the roses," Constantine took the cup from her. Buffy nodded behind Dawn, finished talking to the phone, then gently picked up her best friend and went upstairs, followed by her sister, and still unnoticed to all, the Wizard's Eye. 

Constantine closed his eyes and concentrated on just feeling sensations to try and calm down. The heat from the liquid, the smooth, creamy sweetness, the warm porcelain under his fingers, yielding leather at his back, soft carpet on his feet – yielding to pure feeling, he soothed his mind enough to prevent himself from overreacting. When he finished and looked up, the sisters were coming down, Dawn gingerly holding the roses as if afraid that they would explode in her face. Buffy sat down at the sofas, while her sister busied herself trying to find a vase. 

"Giles said something about how he wished the elf wouldn't act during ungodly hours," Buffy grinned, "But he just said that since nothing seemed to be wrong, just keep watch on Willow, if we're really worried. We can take shifts if you want… "

"I can get somethin' to watch her," Constantine said, giving Dawn the empty cup. She muttered something about her not being a maid, but wandered off to wash it anyway. "The panther. It can make itself invisible to the elf if it wants to be – and if the friggin' elf tries anythin', he might get a bad shock."

"You can summon a panther?" Dawn asked excitedly from the kitchen. "Can I see? Can I?"

Constantine, always happy to have an appreciative audience, obliged. Buffy watched her sister coo and cuddle a huge panther who shot Constantine a look that was clearly reproachful – and laughed.

**

Nalfein, sitting ramrod straight against the wall, holding his staff across his lap with both hands, eyes closed, his mind focused totally on his spell. It was disconcerting having such a wider range of vision as offered by the Eye until one relaxed into it. He had located the house by questioning some of the vampires about possible spellcasters in the area, and the only one who fit his description was known as 'Willow'. He found the name fitting, even in the crude human language, which he somehow understood at the moment, all the easier to speak to the vampires instead of having to waste the temporary Comprehend Language spells. 

Willow – slender yet strong in spirit, with a quiet grace under a semblance of effervescence. Beautiful.

He had levitated the roses there onto her bed – _he wished he could take her on it_ – and then had to creep back to his crypt, knowing that it was unlikely that she would welcome the sight of him at the moment. It would need patience – which he hoped would have the reward he wanted, acceptance into her sweet embrace – and perhaps a return of the same emotions. 

There had been another mage in the house that he made a note of looking out for – he had cast a spell of clairvoyance or some equivalent, surely, because he had found that Nalfein was the culprit who had sent the roses. However, the mage had not noticed the Wizard's Eye, to Nalfein's relief. 

Willow had reacted to the gift exactly as Nalfein had thought she would. No matter – she would be reconciled in time, and then her resolve would weaken. It would need time – time that Nalfein was not sure if he had. He dared not throw away the spider pendant, and its mere presence seemed to be accusing, mocking his new indecision. 

There had been a list of items on her desk, with the words 'To Get' written in her neat hand on top in red marker, along with the words 'money! I need money…' after it. The items were certainly curious – an obsidian cat? But Nalfein decided to try and help her by finding the things. From earlier, overheard conversations in the house, he knew that a lot of the items were expensive, and apparently they were some sort of sacrifice to some Gods. He didn't claim to understand humans. Perhaps he could force some demons to obtain them for him.

Now he watched her as she slept peacefully on her bed, red hair splayed wantonly on her white pillows, and his mind clouded with images that grew more and more erotic than the last.

**

Willow woke to see a panther curled up at her feet and watching her solemnly – and nearly freaked again until she remembered that Constantine had a panther rather like this one when he came out of the Hellmouth. She searched her sleep-fogged mind for the name, then found it. "Good morning, Guen."

The panther yawned at her, displaying an impressive set of teeth. Willow closed her eyes and leisurely went through everything that had happened last night, winced, then looked at the panther again. "I'm pathetic, aren't I?"

It cocked its head at her almost comically, then shook it. 

Willow grinned. "You're too nice." The panther snorted at her as if it understood, then got off the bed and padded out of the door. It took a moment for her stomach to register the smell of fresh waffles and acknowledge it with a rumble.

Finishing with toiletries she ran down to the kitchen, where Buffy gave her a smile of relief. "Will! Get your thieving mentor out of the kitchen before I stake him!"

Laughing, she grabbed Constantine by his elbow and dragged him out, though a last effort on his part managed to snag him a bit more of the waffles, to an outraged squeal from Dawn. "Hey! Buffy, he took some more!"

Constantine found the panther curled up on a large part of his sofa, and muttering, he prodded at it until it moved to Willow's sofa and put its large head on her lap, purring as she rubbed it behind its ears. 

"Nothing happened at night?" Willow asked, oddly disappointed when Constantine shook his head. She was beginning to have strange dreams about the dark elf that involved whipped cream… 

She shut her eyes tightly, trying to will all temptation away from her. Love that wasn't given freely wasn't worth having, was it? Even if it could be done – it would not have any true value, any actual meaning, if it hadn't come voluntarily, because in loving someone, that one gave the someone a piece of oneself – such that if it was of one's accord, it was one of the greatest gift one could give another. So why did she feel so tempted to leave this spell as it was?

Willow opened her eyes to see Constantine studying her. "What shall I do?" she whispered. 

His voice had no inflexion in it as he replied, "What you see fit, luv." 

**

Spike growled to himself as he paced his crypt. The sun had risen and his undead body was appealing to him to sleep, but he refused, still burning with his craving for the Slayer. How dared she toy with him like that? 

"Bitch," he muttered, though the word somehow came out as a moan. 

"Fuck."

That word, if anything, worsened his condition, and to his annoyance, Spike found he had been _enjoying_ being toyed with. If he didn't watch it, he was going to turn into a pansy worse than Peaches. 

He needed a cold shower, and then he had to get to the Magic Box. Something had happened to Willow last night, and… 

Bloody hell… he was even beginning to feel protective of the Slayer's friends! Though Willow was nice to him, as was Dawn, Anya was relatively friendly as long as he kept his hands off the Magic Box merchandise, and only Giles and Xander were anything of a problem. If he managed to get the Slayer alone, then… he hoped she'd pull off something like what she'd done to him in the sewers again. Shaking his head at how whipped he'd become, Spike slunk off for his shower.

**

Research was resumed to try and find a way of canceling the spell, but as Constantine pointed out, short of a brain-wipe, there was hardly any spell that countered the transfer of information. Giles agreed that canceling the induced emotion would be more important, and was about to sit down and do the research, when Anya asked, "Why are you people doing this?"

"We have to cancel the spell, Anya," Willow said firmly. 

"What for?" Anya inquired. 

"What do you mean what for?" Giles moved his glasses higher up on his nose to regard his shop assistant.

"It doesn't seem to be doing any harm – and it might be the only thing stopping this guy from doing horrible magic things to us," Anya said brightly. "That's good, right?"

"The spell makes him love Will, not the rest of us," Buffy pointed out. 

"Yes, but he might… might realize that if he did something to us, Willow would be turned irrevocably against him," Giles said mildly.

"Giles, are you on our side or what?" Buffy pouted. 

"I am, but Anya has a point," Giles sighed. "Ultimately, however, it's still Willow's choice whether or not she wants to cancel it."

Willow's mind roared into a mass of conflicting emotions – again. Didn't she write in her diary before that she wished she had a lover who would understand her? Know her every need and want? 

But of his own free will and discovered knowledge… 

Was free will so important? Was there truly something inherently wrong in using this spell to meddle with the emotions of just this one? What if she swore never to do it again, would she have the strength not to? And even if she did cancel the spell, what if he blamed them for it – rightfully – and then began killing her friends? Would she be able to forgive herself for that? This mage had demonstrated his willingness and ability to wreck violence quite clearly, and he hadn't had a very high opinion of them, by the expression on his face and in his tone of voice, when he'd met them. 

And what was he here for? When he was taken by this spell, would it not be a good chance now to ask him?

Say if she left the spell on him – what if there was an expiry date on it, and he turned on them when they did not expect it? 

Guiltily, she realized she had been thinking in mercenary terms again. The issue here was moral, wasn't it? Was it morally right to be able to compel one of the greatest of human emotions, even if it had been an accident?

What was worse was that Willow found that she was asking herself whether she _cared_ if it was morally right, in the light of the circumstances.

"Will?" Buffy was asking.

Willow bit her lip. "I… I think I should take the chance to ask him what he's here for first before we decide. If he's up to no good… maybe this way we can prevent him from doing it."

"Good idea," Giles approved, and Buffy grinned. Constantine, however, seemed to be able to see through her, as if he understood exactly why she was trying to stall for time. He got up from his chair abruptly.

"Time to talk to the Gods again, luv," he told her, and they walked to the training room. When relatively out of the others' hearing, he said, "Take your time to decide, Red."

"You don't mind?" Willow blinked at him.

"Considerin' that if Rose is right, he might be tryin' a breakin'… yeah, I don't mind. Though if you're goin' to ask me, I'm goin' to go along." 

Willow couldn't help by grin at the belligerence of the last line.

"Yeah, a bleedin' _chaperone_, at my age," Constantine muttered, then added, "And 'sides, you'd be better off if you slowly found the best way out of this, one you won't regret."

"I'm glad we met you," Willow smiled warmly. "Even in this short period, you're now like a second father to me and Buffy and Dawn… though maybe third, since Giles is very fatherly too… that's nice, isn't it?" 

Mildly stunned, Constantine watched Willow prepare her circle and start calling up the next on her Goddess list. 

A father? _Christ_. He had to get out of Sunnydale immediately after all this finished up… 

Buffy entered the room, glanced at Willow, and then sat down next to Constantine, her eyes seeking his for reassurance. 

"Everythin's all right," he murmured at her, and she smiled, reminding him, for a moment, of Gemma.

"Thanks," she replied, squeezing his hand lightly, conscious of her Slayer strength. "For everything." 

Damn. He had a feeling that he might not be able to leave. At least not now… but afterwards, he had to make some decisions.

**

Spike entered the Magic Box by the back, and waited for his skin to stop hissing under the sun, before folding up the blanket he usually used to cover himself whenever he sprinted around under the sunlight and putting it on a chair at the research table. Finding that Buffy wasn't around, he nodded at Anya, offered Giles a cocky "Good mornin'," then wandered into the training room.

Buffy and Constantine were watching Willow cast her calling spells, and Buffy grinned impishly at him when he entered. He sat down next to her, still unused to her strange attitude towards him. He rather hoped it was genuine and not yet another weird spell of Willow's, though he doubted it. 

"Quiet," she told him when he opened his mouth to greet her. He nodded.

What she did next was gratifying – though he didn't expect it either. She got up and ensconced herself on his lap, chuckling and wriggling until she got comfortable. Obviously, that had an expected reaction from him – though instead of jumping away and leaving, Buffy settled down.

"Slayer, you'd be the end of me," he muttered into her hair, all the words he had thought of saying to her face forgotten. Bloody hell, she felt so damned good… 

"Quiet." Buffy told him, and squirmed a bit more in emphasis. He stifled a groan by kissing the top of her head, her vanilla scent intoxicating. 

"I'm not goin' to be silent a lot longer, Slayer," he told her. 

"I said quiet."

"Slayer!" Spike gasped when she did it again.

"I suggest the two of you take it outside," Constantine observed mildly from where he sat. "Right _now_."

"Aww, but I want to watch Willow," Buffy pouted. "Something bad might happen, and then I'd have to slay it."

"Then get off him, luv," Constantine retorted.

"Do you want me to get off, Spike?" Buffy asked playfully, looking up into his blue eyes. The expression of adoration mixed with lust on his face was all the answer she needed. A moral little protesting voice in her mind was making a lot of noise, but for once, she ignored it. This was great fun.

"Bloody hell," Constantine sighed. "Damn teenagers."

--

Notes and References:

__

Wizard's Eye: This is a standard Dungeons and Dragons spell described in earlier chapters. It's a great help to use in Baldur's Gate II. Spy out the dragon, then cast lots and lots and lots of cloudkill spells on it… haha… 

__

Nalfein's problem: From what I understand, dark elven society has some emphasis on sexual activities in their normal, everyday life, debauchery and such. The 'reward' for the top student of the Priestess school – Arach-Tinilith - each graduation day is sex with a big demon. Don't ask me how, and no, I am not kidding.

__

Whipped cream: I love whipped cream! On ice cream, strawberries, peaches… other things… 

__

Peaches: One of Spike's pet names for his sire Angel, or, when minus his soul, called Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, a master vampire who turned Spike. Spike enjoys annoying both personalities of Angel.


	8. Truth and Lies

Chapter 7

Truth and lies

Willow had eventually shooed everyone out of the training room, as Buffy and Spike were making more noise and Constantine was complaining – the resulting mingled clamor interrupting her concentration. Alone at last and firmly closing the door, she took a deep, steadying breath, and looked down at her list. So far, all the gifts, though obtainable, were going to dig deeply into her pockets… at least there hadn't been a time limit, but at this rate, she'd have to try and get a job. Constantine had said not to worry about money, but she felt bad imposing on him further. 

It had nearly been lunchtime anyway, and Anya had been offering to treat Constantine so that instead of watching over Willow casting spells he'd go back to manipulating customers. Giles hadn't been particularly sure that was ethical, since he suspected Constantine of using magic, but Anya had been adamant that it was good business, whichever way one looked at it, proving that her morals, after a thousand years of being a vengeance demon, still needed working on.

She had made good progress with the list of Goddesses, at least – faster than Constantine had believed she would; though he still told her to slow down. It was just that, when one approached the light at the proverbial end of the tunnel, one naturally felt like running.

Maybe one more Goddess before going for lunch… 

As to finding the dark elf, she knew she had to do it eventually – better still, if she did it herself, since she was the one who got everyone into this mess. He might hurt anyone else who came near him, but she doubted that he would do anything to her, unless her definition of love was radically different from the idea of love on another world. At the most, she'd just look up some protection spells that didn't need petitioning Gods before looking for him, in case he tried some meddling spells of his own. And then she could take the opportunity to ask him what he was doing on this world.

Constantine had said the dark elves didn't like sunlight, so Willow decided to go and find him during the sunlit hours. At the most, if she had to run, he would hesitate to follow.

Maybe after lunch she'd go and look around the cemeteries. 

A small part of her informed her that a noticeable proportion of her new resolve was due to the fact that she wanted to see the elf again – and to see the extent of what she had accidentally accomplished. She had a disturbing feeling that she wanted to be convinced – not of taking off the spell – but of leaving it on.

**

Spike felt like protesting against being left alone in the store with Giles when Anya, Buffy and Constantine went off to look for lunch, but kept silent. If he couldn't follow them, what was the bloody point of wanting to go with them? At least Giles was ignoring him, as he usually did – Spike was quite sure the Watcher would never actually accept vampires into Buffy's circle of friends. Too much Watcher training, perhaps – or maybe it was because he reminded Giles of Angel, which would unfailingly in turn remind him of Angel's Mr. Hyde personality, Angelus, who had killed Giles' girlfriend. 

Giles with a girlfriend. That bit he still couldn't seem to be able to accept. Like trying to think if he knew how to break-dance. Or seeing him ride a Harley, or wearing black leather, or… 

Spike realized he was sniggering to himself, but Giles did not even look at him. Probably thought he had lost his bleedin' marbles.

The witch came out of the training room and went to look at the spellbooks, telling Giles something about needing protection spells. Spike could tell that she wasn't going to use the spells for what she was implying she needed them for – in case the Goddesses turned nasty – but Giles totally seemed to overlook that point. Willow sat down at the table near him and began looking through the tomes, occasionally taking notes industriously.

"Hope you're not thinkin' of any more spells to do with bleedin' Goddesses, luv," Spike said, hoping he could prod it out of her.

"Oh no, some of the protection spells don't um, need divine help," Willow said, with the guilty look of a kid caught with her hand down a cookie jar. "Um. I have to call some not-that-friendly-usually Goddesses later, and… and I thought I should try to be ready."

Well, if she didn't want to tell him, then it was probably no business of his, unless… "This is 'bout the elf, eh?"

The look of guilt was quite obvious now. "No, of course not! Why would you um, think so?"

"You're a terrible liar, luv," Spike smirked. Giles, at least, was out of hearing range as he hovered anxiously around a woman with two toddlers who couldn't seem to take their hands off anything. 

"Well, I don't have to tell you anything," Willow said, then looked back at the books, ignoring him.

"If it's to do with the elf… "

"I didn't say that!" Willow's head snapped up and she glared at him. 

"Of course you didn't, luv," Spike smirked again, but it faded quickly. "I know how you feel, luv. Remember that spell you pulled on Buffy and me that time?"

"I've been trying to forget it," Willow said wryly.

"Well, one thing you say about love – once it happens, I don't think you can take it away completely."

"What?" Willow blinked. "Oh gods! Don't tell me I made you continue to love Buffy!"

"Ain't nothin' _that_ serious," Spike said before the witch became really guilty. "The spell just forced me to see Buffy in another way – when you love someone, it highlights all the person's good points, see?" 

"You _really_ sound like Constantine," Willow sighed. 

"He's not half bad for a bloke," Spike shrugged. "As I was sayin'. Even if you took away the spell – even if you _could_ cancel the spell – remember Aphrodite's condition - wot with the elf already _knowin' _about you, there's a chance that he'd love what he knows. The spell might have been just a push in the right direction… "

"Wrong direction!"

"Whatever you say, luv," Spike relaxed in his chair, his point made. Willow looked even more confused now, and then she took a deep breath.

"Spike – since you're the only other person I know who's ever gotten into this sort of a… a mess… can you tell me if my wanting to leave the spell on is wrong?"

"You're askin' _me_ a moral question?"

Willow blushed. "Sorry." She closed the books, having apparently finished looking. "I'd uh, go for lunch."

"Eh luv, I'm flattered," Spike smirked. "But if you're askin' for my opinion – take it off. Is it really worth it to compel summat's love? What's the worth in that? If you're so desperate for affection, luv, get a… "

"Puppy, I know," Willow grinned at the old joke. "But what if when I take it off –if I can take it off - he takes revenge on us? You know what he can do… "

"I've thought of that," Spike nodded. "Here now – when nothin's happenin', it's easy to tell you to take it off, innit? Because the last time – when you rewrote Buffy's – and my – emotions, that frightened me, luv, how we both couldn't tell what was real or not. Freedom of thought could bleedin' sod off, then, for all we cared."

Willow flinched guiltily, remembering what Buffy had said to her of the episode. Her 'I _loved_ him, Willow' was said with an awed horror – horror that had not stemmed from the fact that it _had_ happened, but that it _could_ happen, that she had not known it was a spell, that she had enjoyed it while it lasted. She wondered if, morally, she should give in and break Aphrodite's condition… wasn't that the right thing to do?

"But if you put me in a situation where he's threatenin' Buffy's life – or the Little Bit's if you took it off… well, I'd bleedin' get down on my knees and beg you to leave it on," Spike said, looking away from her. "And another thing why it's so easy to leave it. Remember when I came back after Dru dumped me to ask you for a love spell?"

"Yeah…" Willow stifled a smile, remembering a drunk, desperate Spike who had somehow ended up confessing to Buffy's mom, always willing to lend a sympathetic ear, over a cup of hot cocoa. Buffy's mom had always liked Spike, to the then-Buffy's irritation, and had never actually approved of Angel. Perhaps it was because that though both were vampires, on the surface Spike just looked like one of the bad boys some girls always which they're involved with at some time in their lives for the fun and sex, but Angel looked like a psychotic serial-killer with his brooding, dark looks.

"It's easy to want love when you're so lonely that it's killin' you slowly," Spike said seriously. "Gods know that everyone wants to be loved without friggin' question. But sooner or later you'd find that easy way outs aren't the best way outs, and you'd have to do it yourself the way you were intended to – no magic, no lies, no bleedin' short-cuts." He paused. "Bloody hell. I sound like a friggin' _priest_."

"Um. I'd go now," Willow said, and fled before the vampire could say anything else, fled before the words of truth.

**

Buffy, Anya and Constantine returned slowly from lunch in the satisfied torpor of the full. They were talking about, for some reason, chocolates. Constantine knew that this was something a large proportion of the fairer sex had an obsession on, and once he had offered that the only chocolate he liked was milk chocolate without any other 'bleedin' fancy frills', he had officially labeled himself a chocolate philistine. The two of them were trying to convince him that other sorts of chocolate were worth trying, and Meri wasn't helping by laughing inside his mind.

"Okay, what about mint fillings?" Buffy asked as she opened the Magic Box's door. "Mint fillings are nice, and… "

"I like _plain _milk chocolate, luv," Constantine said mildly, for the twenty-third time since this conversation had started.

"Or nougat? Have you tried nougat?" Anya chirped in.

"Chocolate-with-friggin'-cardboard? Once. Never again."

"What about creams? Like strawberry or orange…" It was Buffy's turn to come up with a suggestion.

"If I want jam I'd rather eat it on toast."

"What about caramel?" Anya asked brightly.

"Bleedin' _melted sugar_? No thanks, luv. I want melted sugar, luv, I can _make _melted sugar. Looks like pulverized slugs."

"Dark chocolate?" Buffy asked, trying another line of attack. "They do nice ones – After Eights – but they're also mint… "

"Chocolate should be _sweet_, not bitter, luv."

"Pralines?" Anya took up the questioning effortlessly.

"I like me chocolates _plain_, luv." Constantine said firmly, with a pained expression, looking around to try and find a means of escape. "I'd ah, go back to lookin' at books." Hastily, he hurried away, but first bypassed the amused blond vampire to look inside the training room. Willow wasn't there, but Constantine assumed she'd gone out for lunch. Nodding at the vampire, he sat down and picked up a book at random.

Protection spells for the self from mind-magic.

Constantine frowned and looked through it, but decided there was nothing wrong. After all, she was probably just being careful, if the Gods wanted to try some other forms of manipulation. Shutting out the warning bells in his head, he put the book on his lap as if reading, and eventually fell asleep, as was his natural reaction to anything resembling studying.

**

Willow looked around. The cemetery looked almost tranquil and deserted in the sunlight, but she knew better than to go poking around the crypts unprepared. She had put the protection spells on herself, and hoped they'd keep out dark elven magic if he tried it on her, but there wasn't much else she would dare to use.

She was using telepathy – something she was good at, which hadn't, as yet, caused any accidents – to feel out the minds in the area. There were presences in some of the crypts with the sulphurous, orange-red warmth she associated with demons, a few of the misty white ones that were ghosts or wraiths, and a few of the cold, earthy ones of the walking dead. Willow bypassed a several stretches of crypts before she found what she was looking for – a crypt beneath two large trees with spreading crowns, inside of which there was a mind that felt like a human's, though subtly different. 

There were probably wards around there somewhere. Willow nervously wondered if she should try a spell, but the strain of holding the physical shields on herself might start to tell on her soon, and she'd just have to hope that the shields she put on for offensive magic would keep the worst of it off her…

Resolutely, she walked towards the crypt, and reached the door. It swung open easily – no wards yet – and she walked into the cool interior. It was empty, and she was relieved for a moment until she realized that there was a dark stairway at the right corner that led to a lower level. 

She murmured a word in Latin and a ball of blue light formed in front of her. Allowing that to lead the way, she walked down the stairway, marveling at the lack of wards, and then found herself standing in a smaller chamber which had one tomb to her left and a pile of rubble to her right – probably another, shattered tomb, and also a large box of something next to that. The light was not enough to illuminate all the dark corners, and she tried to pierce the darkness with her inadequate eyes. The place seemed to be uninhabited, but she could feel the dark elf's mind, somewhere to her… 

"Willow." The word seemed to be breathed from the atmosphere of the chamber itself like a dying breeze, poignant with unfulfilled yearning, but there was an underlying tone of… desire? Willow swallowed. Now what had she gotten herself into?  
"How… how do you know my name?"

It seemed as though the shadows detached themselves from the corner nearest to the box, and formed into the elf when he pulled back his hood. He was leaning on his staff as though he was tired, and though his manner appeared casual, Willow could see the tension. There was none of the blank adoration Spike displayed openly to Buffy in his expression in the dark elf's eyes – though there was burning ardor and the adoration, which was admittedly there, seemed to be hooded. There was affection without tenderness, empathy without intimacy. The dark elf smiled indulgently at her question. "I asked some vampires. If you did not wish others to know your name so easily you should not give it out too freely." He spoke American English – like she did – without any trace of an accent. The spell was even weirder than she'd thought.

Willow was quite certain what the elf's idea of asking was, but decided to continue with what she came here to do. "What's _your_ name?" 

"You are quite forward," the elf observed. He seemed pleased when she flushed at that and mumbled an apology. "But as you wish. My name is Nalfein Do'Urden. I have others, but that was my birth-name."

"Oh." So Constantine was right – this _was_ a Do'Urden. Willow wondered why he kept running into them, unless it was some cosmic joke on the part of the Powers that Be who wanted to see how long it'd take for him to start killing Do'Urdens. "Um. I have more questions… " Now how sad did _that_ sound? Willow felt like a little child desperately asking questions of a teacher before recess time, and wondered how bright red her cheeks were now.

"Ask what you will." His voice became an insinuating purr, and Willow felt her body reacting to it. Biting her lip, she tried to think of school… helping with Dawn's homework… anything to stop allowing her body to make the connection between the wet warmth at the apex of her legs to... _no._

"Firstly, what are you on… what did you come to this world for?" Willow relaxed slightly. Talking business helped. 

"Why should I tell you, Willow?" Nalfein replied, stalking forward deliberately, ignoring the light, the unusual material of his robes flowing like dark waters. Instinctively, Willow took several steps backwards – taking her a little further away from the staircase. He smiled slightly at this, but was far too close before Willow could realize her mistake and make a run for it. Something cold and hard at her back, pressing at her shoulderblades – she'd just reached the wall. Nalfein stopped approaching, though he already stood a little too close for her comfort. This close to him, with him only slightly taller than she was, the inhuman perfection of his features seemed all the more apparent, and she guiltily wondered what the rest of him looked like. When he spoke again she stared openly at him as though mesmerized. "Should you pay me for the information?" 

"Pay?" Willow stammered, looking behind the elf wildly, then mumbled, "Er… er… maybe I should go."

"Something trivial." Nalfein smiled at her discomfort. "Perhaps if you could grant me a kiss for each question answered?"

"Wha… what?"

"Just one kiss each," Nalfein purred. "No charm spells or such involved. I give you my word."

Willow reflected that at this rate he wouldn't even _need_ charm spells. "Oh." Her conscience won out over her emotional struggle. "You do know you're… you're under a spell, don't you?"

"I thought so," Nalfein inclined his head. "My dispelling spells do not seem to work on it – so either they cannot grasp on magic from this world, or that the spell was of information and cannot be dispelled." His eyes seemed to burn into hers. "I believe it was of the latter, because my mind was suddenly full of you… "

"Why not the former?" Willow didn't want to know the extent of what the spell had done.

Nalfein chuckled. "Some demons tried to ensorcell me last night. My protections – which I had even before I met you – held." His smile was wicked. "I have no doubt they are currently regretting that they had ever run into me."

"Oh dear." Willow said a little faintly. The demons were alive – which was probably worse. Either that spell had somehow gotten through his shields, or it had been of information and perhaps a little 'push' in the 'right direction'… "We couldn't find a way to dispel it."

"Why would you wish to?" Nalfein asked. He seemed genuinely curious as to why they'd try to get rid of a spell that would technically give them the advantage over him. 

"Because… because love shouldn't be compelled with spells," Willow said quickly. "It would have no value then."

"You think what I feel for you is compelled?"

"How else can it be? Your kind… you don't like humans, I've heard," Willow decided to leave out the names of her friends. 

Nalfein moved very quickly. Willow flinched when she found his hand was stroking her cheek, and she fought the urge to lean into it. "Even one so beautiful? A living flame whose fire burns at my soul? Listen to me, Willow. It is easy to dislike humans when for two and a half centuries one has never actually known humans – only seen them as scuttling, frightened creatures scrambling out of one's way in one's city. But now… " He moved closer, such that he pressed against her and she could feel his breath on her ear, and, the gods save her, the evidence of his arousal. 

"Mmm. Perhaps it _is_ accurate to say I love you. Your spell, I would think – has revealed yourself to me – your heart and your soul." Unable to move with the shock, she felt his head dip and he kissed her neck in the hollow the way she liked it. "I loved what I saw and what I understood… so yes, I love you, Willow." Frozen at the words, reason fleeing, Willow's mind noted that Nalfein smelled good – a sort of faint, minty scent that was absolutely enticing.

"What are you here for?" Willow's voice sounded strangled even to herself when he lazily licked along her collarbone, apparently having forgotten his proposed game. Thoughts of pushing him away never actually entered her mind – this felt deliciously good, and Willow found herself hoping that, spell or no spell, Nalfein wouldn't stop.

"That is a wide question," he murmured, leaning his dragon-staff on the wall next to her, freeing his other hand into play, slender fingers of both hands massaging her thighs, then sliding up to her hips.

"On this world, then?" Willow bit back a whimper when he turned his attention to the other side of her neck.

He stopped and looked at her, amused. "Very well, I shall tell you. I am on this world as an errand-boy for the Goddess I have no choice but to follow. Though I have found another Goddess who far surpasses the first in her splendor…" Nalfein kissed her lazily, and Willow found herself opening her mouth to allow his tongue to delve inside and explore. He tasted of wine and spice, and she tangled her fingers in his hair, kissing him back eagerly. Eventually he pulled away, breathing heavily, an unsatisfied gleam in his eyes. "That was your first question."

"I didn't agree to your game," Willow said, trying to slow down her heartbeat and her breathing. She was alternating between wishing her friends would find her and wishing they'd stay away – she acknowledged that she'd gotten herself in way out of her depth, but it had been so long since she had touched someone in this way. 

"You did not disagree either," Nalfein pointed out with just the trace of a devilish grin. "Do you have other questions, or can we… "

"I have other questions," Willow said quickly before he made suggestions that she was afraid she would acquiesce to. "What errand?"

"To find something called 'the Key' for the Goddess Lloth." Nalfein leant forward to kiss her again, but Willow moved her head away quickly.

"You didn't say what this key would do… " 

"You didn't ask." Nalfein used one hand to hold her head while he took his second kiss ardently. "Now. Your third question – the key would allow the Goddess to enter this world." 

Though Willow took pleasure in the third kiss, her heart was sinking. It was as Rose had warned – this elf had been attempting a breaking of world barriers. He had to be stopped.

"Do you know where the key is?" she asked hopefully. Maybe she could get to it first, or… 

"One of your friends possesses it," Nalfein said. "I had hoped it was you – but this did not glow." He pulled a pendant of a spider out from his robes. It was dull, like any other precious gem in dim light. He put it back in his clothing, then leant forward again. Willow formulated her next question while fighting against her own desire. 

When he pulled away again she managed to speak. "Um. Can you give me the pendant that would glow in the presence of the key?" She put in the elaboration in case the pendant he showed her was a fake, and hence if he agreed and gave it to her, it would be a trick at her expense.

"That would not be information now, would it." Nalfein seemed to have expected that question, and he seemed even more amused than ever. 

"N-no…"

"So… another price would be more… fitting." Nalfein's fingers slipped under her blouse from behind and located the button and zip of her skirt. Willow gasped as he unbuttoned it deftly and was about to protest before he got to the zip, but when he kissed her again, she knew that she was lost.

**

The Scooby gang, gathered at the Magic Box, were getting anxious. Xander was back from his job and Dawn had finished school for the day, and Willow still hadn't returned from lunch. Nor had she gone home – and they'd even gone so far as to check the Rosenberg residence, where Willow's parents, who had rejected her, lived. Constantine was cursing himself for not noticing the other reason that Willow could have read up on protection spells for. They regretted every moment of delay in setting out to find her, but there was always some hope that she'd suddenly turn up in the Magic Box, sheepish and brimming over with reasons for being delayed. However, as the minutes ticked past, it became quite obvious what she had probably done. 

"I can't _believe_ she went to find him by herself!" Buffy was frantic. "What if she gets hurt? What if… "

"I don't think he'd kill her, Slayer," Spike said soothingly. It didn't work – Buffy, if anything, got even more angry.

"If he hurt her, _I'm_ going to kill _him_!"

"You'd have to queue up to do it," Constantine growled, extremely annoyed with himself. "Damn. There's nothin' to it – we'd have to go and look for them. The cat can probably follow her scent."

"Cat?" Giles asked.

"It's a big black panther," Dawn explained. "It's very friendly."

"To my friends," Constantine corrected, his unspoken intimation of what the panther would do to the damned elf if they found Willow hurt palpably obvious. "Sun's going to set soon. We'd better go."

Spike was about to protest, but then he changed his mind. "I'd stay here if she comes back," he said, unwilling to ask them to wait for them and still filled with an overwhelming wish to help that was quite embarrassing. "I'd catch up with you later."

"Thanks, Spike," Buffy said sincerely, and he gaped at her in shock. She smiled at him, then led her sister outside, such that he didn't see the twin, knowing smirks that they exchanged. Dawn mouthed 'score three to you', and Buffy nodded wickedly.

Giles and Anya looked at each other, then Giles shrugged. "If you steal anything… "

Spike smirked, though still reeling from the Slayer's thanks to come up with a suitable retort. "If I steal anythin', you won't notice." When Anya glared at him, he amended, "Okay, I won't. I swear on it. Happy?"

Giles gave him the keys to the shop, and then they all set off to the cemetery after getting weapons from the training room, though they were firstly going to drop off Dawn at the Summers house. Spike tossed the keys into the air and caught them adroitly, watching the dying sunlight wash the pavement outside with burnished gold. It reminded him of the Slayer's hair… the Slayer, who was right now going into a graveyard to try and find and rescue her best friend from a powerful mage.

"What the _hell_ did you get yourself into now?" he muttered. It was unclear as to whom he was referring to.

--

Notes and References:

__

Money: When he really needs to get money, Constantine can walk up to a person, ask him for his wallet, and the person would happily give it to him and wish him a good day. Same thing to hotel rooms, to quote from the trade paperback 'Damnation's Flame', written by Garth Ennis, who does a lovely rendition of his accent that I can't seem to stay on:

'And how will you be paying, Mr. Constantine?'

'Actually, luv, I won't. But you just put that I have in your computer wotsit, eh? And bung us up some sarnies and a six-pack on room service, while you're at it.'

'That'll do nicely, sir. Enjoy your stay'

What can I say? Magic.

__

Spike and love spells: This was in Season 3, when Drusilla, Spike's love for a century or so, left him for a fungus demon (at this point of time the Buffy show was getting seriously warped). Spike, desperate, came to Sunnydale to try and force Willow to cast him a love spell on Drusilla so he could get her back. Weirdness happened, including a drunk Spike falling asleep outside his crypt when the sun rose and his hand catching fire. This was one of the few Season 3 episodes that I watched, since I am not a Buffy/Angel fan.

__

Running into Do'Urdens: In the previous 'fics I've written that crossed Hellblazer with FR, the first dark elf that Constantine has met on a new AU world always seems to be a Do'Urden. It's driving him nuts.

__

The rating: Of the story, is still PG-13 and is unlikely to change for the story proper. I may be tempted to write an NC-17 chapter, especially if asked, but I'd put it after the epilogue and the afterword, probably, so people can skip it if they want.


	9. Divine Sociopaths

Chapter 8

Divine sociopaths

"Red!" Constantine blinked. "Luv, are you okay?"

They were at the Summers residence, having decided to stop by there for a while to drop Dawn off. Predictably, Dawn had complained all the way to the house about Buffy's overprotectiveness, but had been overruled. To their considerable surprise, Willow had opened the door to greet them.

"I'm okay," she said, with a reassuring smile. Her friends looked very relieved and she let them into the house, wondering what she was going to say – by the looks of all the weaponry they were holding – probably from the training room – they had been just about to go out and look for her. A straightforward answer would have been 'I'm sorry for making all of you worry, but I went out to talk with the dark elf Nalfein and then I slept with him' but unfortunately, it'd have a straightforward and probably unwelcome response.

"Where have you been?" Buffy demanded. "We were so worried!"

Willow decided to be truthful… mostly truthful. "I went to um, talk to the dark elf. His name is Nalfein Do'Urden," she added, glancing at Constantine. Her mentor rolled his eyes.

"Bloody hell."

"What? Why did you do something like that? He could have hurt you!" Buffy frowned. "Did he hurt you?" 

Willow could tell her best friend was itching for an excuse to go and kill Nalfein. "No, he didn't. He was um, quite courteous." _And gorgeous, and very experienced_, but Willow kept her counsel on that, concentrating on trying not to dwell on what had happened. After everything she had extricated herself from the situation as quickly as possible, to Nalfein's amusement, and then run off home to clean up in case her friends noticed anything. The dark elf seemed perfectly content to let her go, and his soft laughter that rang behind her as she exited the crypt was mocking, but oddly enough, he seemed to be mocking himself, and not her. 

"And Rose was right," Willow said, sitting down on a sofa. "He's here to engineer a breaking to let out Lloth… "

"Oh hell," Constantine muttered. "I was 'fraid of that." The first thing Lloth would probably do if she manifested here would be to be revenged on him for being part of (in her eyes) a conspiracy that lessened her power. Actually, Zaknafein had been the one who knifed her, but the Goddess was a sociopath.

"And he needs to find something called 'the key'… with this." Willow took the spider pendant out of her pocket, dangling on the end of its chain. It immediately began to glow as it had when they first met Nalfein. "It glows in the presence of the key, and Nalfein said one of us has it."

"How did you get it from him?" Xander asked curiously, taking the pendant from her and looking at it closely, then passing it to Anya with a shudder. "I hate spiders."

"I asked for it," Willow said, which was the perfect truth, leaving out the rest of it, as to what had happened in return. She had expected to feel cheap at the end of it, and not a sense of sated fulfillment, and she wondered if the pendant was actually Nalfein offering her his idea of a graceful excuse for what she had done, giving in to her desires over common sense. 

"And he gave it to you?" Xander grinned. "So, is he all…" Xander waved his hand in the air vaguely to indicate head-over-heels love. 

"Yeah. It was a bit embarrassing, since he knew I did something to him," Willow admitted. "He said his dispel magic spells didn't… didn't work, and that it was probably just an information spell and not that the spell had slipped through his shields, since some demons tried to put domination spells on him some time ago and they didn't work. Either."

"Information spell?" Giles mused; accepting the pendant as it went round. "Maybe the clause slipped through."

"Maybe," Willow said, though she hoped that it was what Nalfein said he thought it was – that his love had come of his own accord, hence saving her from having to debate morality and prudence with herself. It was easy to try and place oneself in the 'good' side, but when it came down to decisions… 

"So he can't do the breaking thing now?" Buffy asked the question that she thought most important.

"Well, he gave me his word that he wasn't going to be the one to do it." Willow said with a grin. That had been another achievement, she'd privately thought.

"As in, there're more friggin' dark elves around?" Constantine asked shrewdly, "Or he's not going to do it?"

"I took it to mean that he's not going to do it," Willow frowned, wondering if there were double meanings to the other things Nalfein had said to her, "But I can ask him again later."

"Later? You're still going to speak to him?" Buffy seemed astonished.

"He just stranded himself on this world by giving that thing to me," Willow pointed at the pendant, which had reached Constantine. "So I… I thought at least I could just speak to him now and then." She smiled sheepishly. "Um. Right?"

Everyone save Constantine seemed to look to Buffy for a decision on the matter. Buffy shrugged. "Well, if he was that nice, then I suppose it's the end of the matter, and if he didn't want to hurt you… um, just tell us where his crypt is so if one day you don't come back we can go there and kill him." Willow grinned at her, relieved that her friend didn't seem to be making so big an issue out of it – but well, Buffy had so far taken one vampire lover, and seemed set to take another. At least Nalfein was alive. Buffy continued, "We'd put the pendant somewhere safe, and forget about it."

"One of us has the key, right?" Anya asked, watching the glowing pendant. "So do we want to find out who?"

"Who cares," Buffy said with a shrug. "Unless one of us is wearing something newish and occult… " Everyone shook their head. 

"Wonder if the key is a thing," Constantine muttered, poking the pendant. "This bloody thing would be better off far, far away from the Hellmouth."

"Well, I'd put it with the other things in the Magic Box," Giles said, taking the pendant from Constantine and pocketing it. "At least if a thief comes for it, it wouldn't be too obvious amongst all the other stuff. Or, we could um, ask Angel… "

Buffy shuddered. "Oh please. You can talk to him if you want to ask. I'm going on patrol," she added curtly, then walked out of the house, idly wondering why any mention of Angel seemed to bring a burp of unreasonable pique nowadays. She went looking for Spike, without thinking why that action seemed so natural to her now.

The rest of the group, uncomfortable, talked a bit about inconsequentials and then drifted off, Dawn to go upstairs to commence her daily battle with homework. Willow realized that she was left in downstairs with Constantine, who was studying her critically.

"Anythin' else you left out in front of them about Nalfein, luv?" he asked quietly.

"I… "

"You're a terrible liar, luv," Constantine said, unconsciously echoing Spike. "Do you want to tell me, or do you want me to guess?"

Willow chewed at her bottom lip, unwilling to admit what she had done. "There's nothing more I'd like to add."

"If you like," Constantine shrugged. "Who am I to judge, eh? Bit of a warnin' – if you're playin' with fire… "

"I'd get burned," Willow completed the maxim with a forced grin. "I know."

**

"So, the pendant is with Giles now, and the thing's sort of concluded," Buffy told Spike as she ducked a punch from a vampire, punched the thing in the stomach, and then staked it in the back with one fluid move. Without looking to see if it turned into ashes, she engaged the next one, a roundhouse kick that caught it in the neck, then a flurry of timed punches that knocked it down long enough for her to stake it. 

Spike snorted as he danced around a hulking, beefy vampire that tried ineffectually to get his meaty hands on the blond vampire. "You think he gave it to her that easily, luv?" 

"What else am I supposed to think?" Buffy grunted as a vampire got lucky and got a scratch in on her shoulder, tearing her shirt. "Hey!" 

"I think it's obvious she didn't say everythin'," Spike replied, kicking out the legs of the big vampire from behind and swiftly staking him.

"You think she wasn't sayin' the truth?" Buffy asked belligerently, defending her friend.

"I didn't say that, Slayer. I was suggestin' she left out some of it. Doubt this elf would give her the pendant so easily."

"You're just jaded, Spike," Buffy replied, finishing off the last vampire. "Maybe he loved her enough to give her anything she wanted," she added a little wistfully.

"It was a spell, Buffy," Spike said, approaching her, a sense of irritation welling up inside him. Was she implying that she didn't think he loved her, or that she didn't think he loved her _enough_? She hadn't even asked him for what she wanted – if she wanted anything. "Bloody hell, it's not _real_."

"I suppose so," Buffy sighed. "What _is_ real love, then?"

"If this is going to turn into a psychoanalysis of Peaches, I'm going to find some vampires to have fun with," Spike growled. 

Buffy hugged herself, wishing the memories would go away, or that they wouldn't hurt so much, and listened to the silence of the night. She looked blankly into the distance, and then asked in a remote, dreamy voice, "Do you love me, Spike?"

The vampire approached and embraced her tentatively, as if afraid she would run, or worse, stake him. With her new attitude towards him, he didn't know what to expect from her any longer. "With all my undead heart, Slayer."

Buffy closed her eyes and luxuriated in his arms for a while, enjoying the leather-and-smoke smell that seemed to be a part of Spike… and remembered what she wanted to ask of him next. "Would you give me anything I wanted, then?" She was careful to keep her voice remote, as though she was only considering a theoretical question. "Anything in the world, Spike?"

"Yes," the vampire said unhesitatingly.

"Even your duster?" 

Spike looked down at her with shock. "My duster?"

"I like your duster," Buffy grinned mischievously at him, plucking at the lapels. 

"I like my duster too, Slayer," Spike protested with grudging admiration at her newfound deviousness, realizing that she had tricked him. "Slayer… "

"You said 'yes', Spike." Buffy pouted. _Score four to the Buffster_, she added mentally as the vampire's face twisted into a curious mix of anguish, amusement and resignation. 

"Slayer… "

"And my name is Buffy."

"_Buffy_, can we talk about this?"

"No."

"But it's my duster!"

"I know." She rubbed against him, grinning as his body reacted to her, and he groaned. Immediately, she pulled away, and put her hands on her hips. 

"I'm waiting… "

"C'mon, Slayer!"

"Are you going back on your word, Spike?" Buffy's lower lip trembled as if she was about to burst into tears.

Spike sighed, heart wrenching at the sight, even though he _knew_ she was faking it, then let go of her, and began to shrug off his black leather coat. The things he did for this girl… "This had better be worth it, Buffy," he growled at her.

"Oh, it is," Buffy said happily, taking the duster from him and pointedly ignoring the actual meaning of his words.

**

The next few days were relatively uneventful. Buffy proudly wore Spike's duster around, and the vampire's pleading looks she ignored, or brushed aside with exclamations along the lines of 'I'm _so_ in love with this coat!' and such. Spike wondered if it was a sign that he was turning into his sire when he realized he was beginning to get jealous of the attention his coat was getting from her.

Constantine spent the days manipulating customers at the Magic Box and wondering why he was staying in Sunnydale – he'd already told Willow most of the basic rules, and had already given her advice on creating her own style – advice that she hadn't actually needed. As like a friend of his whose magic was released when she spoke backwards – such that if she wanted, say, a bowl of strawberries she'd say 'seirrebwarts raeppa', Willow's style was also speech-magic, though in her case, talking in Latin. There wasn't much else he could do here, but he didn't have any pressing engagements elsewhere, and he felt bound to at least watch Willow through getting freed of the gods.

Willow finished calling up the gods and had compiled a list of items. She avoided the cemetery, though gifts still showed up on her bed which Constantine could tell she liked very much. He had no idea what they meant and didn't particularly want to know – Willow took to explaining them to Buffy and Dawn, and the Summers sisters seemed to find the gifts rather sweet. A handmade, white teddy bear, a smoky gray kitten with green eyes, which had been given to Dawn after the kid had pleaded… the gifts went on. Three days after Willow had compiled the list of items they found every single thing on the list for Goddesses stacked up neatly on the kitchen table, along with yet another white card with a dragon symbol. Sometimes the dragon on the cards was curled up, asleep, sometimes in flight, sometimes roaring. Willow collected the cards and put them in her diary.

It turned out that the 'sacrifice' was easy – Willow just had to put her hand on the thing and go "I sacrifice this to so-and-so", insert the Goddess' name and a few more flowery terms. Willow seemed more relaxed than ever when all the holds on her soul had gone, losing the normal tension she felt whenever she thought of using magic, though she admitted that other than feeling more complete than she had ever had since using magic, her power didn't seem to have diminished. Constantine shrugged and just told her that she usually wouldn't feel different in any case. 

She spent time reading English-Latin texts. One annoying thing about having her own style – she needed to be more proficient in Latin.

She did, however, feel extremely guilty about ignoring the dark elf, especially after all the gifts she had actually needed that had solved her problem. Constantine was mildly worried about how he'd actually _known_ about the items, but Willow was too happy with them to try and scrutinize the circumstances. She decided to go and see him today and thank him. Waiting until everyone was out of the house for the day, she put on tight white jeans and a spaghetti-strap soft blue blouse before realizing what she was doing, then blushed and put a dark blue cardigan over it. She wasn't dressing for the occasion… was she?

**

"It's Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!" Dawn sang cheerfully as she followed Buffy and Constantine into the Magic Box. Saturday had no school, and as far as Dawn was concerned, along with Sunday, the weekends were then holy days where she had all day to pester her sister. 

Dawn grinned as she watched her sister walk to the training room to start, still wearing Spike's duster with Spike at her heels, reminding Dawn of a trained dog. The poor vampire! The game was cruel, but she had a feeling that both sides were enjoying it, which was very strange. Still, she never proclaimed an understanding of vampires. Maybe they were all masochists.

Constantine winked at Anya as he entered, and began 'harassing' a blond girl. Dawn _called_ it harassing, at least… when she'd asked Constantine if he was using magic, he'd shaken his head and winked at her. Wondering if she could learn how to do that – on boys - she wandered around the counter to join Anya, and noticed that on the shelf under the counter, there was a bright source of light.

Looking more closely, she realized that it was the spider pendant, wedged between two things that she didn't really want to know what they were. Curiously, she picked it up – she hadn't touched it on the night it had been going around the group.

"Oh, so it's here!" she grinned at Anya. "It's pretty… " 

The glow seemed to grow a lot brighter when she touched it, and then it flashed incandescent.

"Dawn!" Giles shouted in alarm. It was a little too late.

"Ouch!" Dawn dropped the spider pendant, clutching at her hand in pain. Somehow, there was a gash in her palm, as though the spider had bitten her. Mesmerized, she watched as the blood welled up, and time seemed to slow.

**

The crypt was as silent as she remembered it as she descended the stairs. This time, Nalfein was seated cross-legged on the flat surface of the intact tomb, eyes closed, one hand on each knee. The staff was leaning on the part of the tomb behind him, and the opal fire seemed to flare a bit brighter when she approached. Nalfein, however, gave no indication that he knew of her presence.

"Nalfein?" she asked tentatively. 

Still as a statue. Considerably unnerved now, Willow walked more closely to him and put her hand on his, and couldn't resist caressing it a little. "Are you okay?"

When the dark elf didn't respond, Willow climbed up onto the tomb. He was still breathing, so… unless it was a trance, in which case she shouldn't interrupt… but what if whatever he was tranced for wasn't a good thing? Or was this some elvish form of sleeping? A rather dangerous kind of sleep, if he didn't wake up when she touched him… unless he relied far too much on his wards and was trusting her not to do anything to him. He had revealed previously that he had fixed it such that his wards would not work on her.

Willow studied his face closely, then on impulse, pressed her lips to his. His mouth parted immediately, and she deepened her kiss, not knowing _why_ she was getting herself into this again – only that, by the Gods, he still tasted so good. When she broke it off, his eyes were open, and twinkling with mischief. He pulled her into his lap. 

"Why, you… " Willow tried to glare, but began to giggle. 

He smirked at her. "What are you here for, Willow?"

"Well, I was going to thank you for everything," Willow said, subsiding. 

"_Everything_, beloved?" the elf chuckled, with wicked emphasis, stroking her hair. Her traitorous heart leaped at the last word.

"Yeah," Willow leaned on him and listened to his breathing. They sat like that for a while, until Willow began to feel drowsy and safe in his embrace. He seemed content to be silent and passive. 

"It has begun," Nalfein murmured suddenly. 

"What?"

"Nothing important," the elf replied, and kissed her deeply, one of his hands straying down her belly, rubbing her languidly through the fabric. 

"Nalfein… " Willow moaned, as he seated her such that she was straddling him. 

"I love you," Nalfein whispered, and murmured an apology to her in the dark elven tongue. When Willow was about to ask him what he had said, he ignored her question, occupying himself by licking at the expanse of exposed skin that her outfit showed, and then slipped off her cardigan. After that, Willow forgot that he had said anything.

**

Spike watched Buffy as she went through her practice routines with a hunter's grace – not taking off his beloved duster at any time. She was doing stretching exercises, eyes closed in concentration, her body's amazing flexibility giving Spike certain ideas that were best saved for a bedroom. 

"When am I goin' to get my duster back?" He knew the answer to this, but he wanted to hear her voice.

"Never, Spike," Buffy smirked, eyes still closed arching her back, legs tucked underneath her. "I loved this thing since the first time I saw it. Now I get to spend some quality time with it at last… "

"Really." The jealousy flared, and he clenched his fists before how stupid it was hit him, and he relaxed with an effort, glad that she hadn't seen anything.

Actually, Buffy had divined that there was a sudden freezing tone in his voice, and she snickered inwardly and decided to see how much farther she could push him. "Oh yes. That's why I didn't make that much effort to kill you even when you were evil. More evil. Whatever. Sometimes vampire clothing also gets dusted. I don't understand why."

Spike didn't either, actually. "Are you sayin' that you can take me on, Buffy?"

Buffy opened her eyes as she breathed out, relaxing her body's position. "Anytime, luv," she drawled, mimicking his accent, then slowly looked him up and down. "The question is – can you take me on?"

She squealed as he pounced on her, growling, and they wrestled for a bit like some mutated pinball bouncing off equipment before she finally finished up on top, pinning his hands to his side. "Ha!" she exclaimed in triumph, cheeks flushed with the exertion. Spike didn't complain, since his current position offered an excellent view down Buffy's low-cut blouse. 

"Dawn!" Giles shouted suddenly, from outside, and their heads snapped up sharply at Dawn's cry of pain. Immediately, they scrambled to their feet and ran for the door. 

Outside resembled a scene plucked out of Buffy's nightmares. Dawn seemed to be frozen stiff, her right hand held up in front of her, palm facing out. From the palm, droplets of blood seemed to leave from a cut and fall _horizontally_, to flatten out on the space between the counter and the table, trying to create some sort of flat, grisly plane. As Buffy watched, horrified, Anya put her hand on Dawn's arm, trying to pull her away, and a crackle of dark purple fire flared, throwing the ex-demon across the room to crash into the bookshelves.

The customers fled screaming, and Constantine hurried up, eyes wide. "_Christ_! A friggin' Gate!"

"What?" Buffy panicked. "What happened?"

"Dawn picked up the pendant," Giles said quickly. "I saw the stone spider move. It bit her on her palm… and then this happened."

"Do something, Giles!" Buffy cried, as she crossed to the counter. Dawn's eyes were closed, in a grotesque parody of peace. "Will this kill her? Why did it bite her?"

"I think she was the key, luv," Constantine frowned. "All this time we thought it was a thing, but it turned out to be your sis."

"Why? Why her?"

"I don't know." Constantine put his hand forward into the path of the blood – or tried to. More purple fire, though this time it glanced off before it actually hit Constantine. He tried to push his hand forward, as Meri lent him shields and strength, but then Dawn started to scream in agony and he quickly backed off. 

Her eyes were open now, and her features twisted as she stared at him with unmitigated hatred, the color of her pupils purple. "Constantine," she spoke, her voice a loud, cavernous boom, and then she smiled cruelly. "Do you know me?"

"The bitch queen, here at last," Constantine folded his arms. 

"I will have you watch as your friends die, when I gain control of the power of this world… and then your agony would… you dare!" Dawn-Lloth roared when Constantine yawned at her.

"Heard them all before, luv," Constantine said coldly. He flashed her the Finger and his trademark sardonic grin. "And my reaction to death threats - Up yours."

As he hoped, Dawn-Lloth snarled, and brought up her other hand in a claw. Bright purple fire splashed across his shield with enough force to bring him onto his knees and bark his kneecaps. When she used the magic, however, the blood-flow seemed to slow down considerably.

: _Bloody friggin' hell. Can't use offensive or might hurt Dawn. _:

: _When Lloth fully manifests… or even when she nears that, we won't be able to hold out any longer. This is only a tiny fraction of her power. _:

: _Christ. _: Constantine now understood what Nalfein had meant by him not being the one who would create the Breaking – it had been Dawn's curiosity… had the dark elf known, or had he trusted it to luck? : _Friggin' elves!_ :

"Find Willow!" Constantine shouted at the rest of them as Dawn-Lloth hit him with more energy. Willow probably wouldn't be able to help – but perhaps her dark elf 'friend' could… ah hell, who was he kidding?

Meri's shield broke with a shower of sparks, and with a sigh, Constantine allowed the phoenix to flare up into being, knowing full well that a manifestation would land him in bed for days. 

: _Can we summon Jarlaxle? _: he asked, as Meri slashed at the blood-portal. The blood hissed and began to smoke, but Dawn-Lloth replied with an offensive that sent the both of them out through the door. Meri helped to cushion most of the shock, but Constantine still felt as though he had just been kicked in the back repeatedly. : _Fuck._ :

"You will rue the day you crossed me," Dawn-Lloth promised.

--

Notes and References:

__

Speaking backwards: Here I am referring to Constantine's friend Zatanna, who, along with her late father, use magic by speaking backwards. Both were extremely popular stage magicians. I have a suspicion Zatanna has also appeared in Batman.

__

Dawn: This is a Stupid Plot Device ™, brought to you by the Buffy show. Somehow, a bunch of monks made the green energy which was the Key to the evil Goddess Glorificus ripping open dimensions to go into her homeworld and in the process causing the usual end of the world thingies into a human, living girl. This girl they planted into Buffy's family, and somehow made it such that everyone associated with Buffy knew who Dawn was, and had all the memories of her as a kid, growing up, etc. Even Buffy knew, as if she had always been there. They even managed to alter photographs and all that to put Dawn in them. Impossible, if you ask me, for humans, considering the immense amount of detail they'd have had to put in, but there you are. 

Spoilers for the show – Dawn's running blood would have opened the Gate, but since Dawn was of Buffy's blood, Buffy jumped into the portal, closed the gate, and died, to my intense irritation, since I like her and Dawn basically acts like an absolute brat throughout the show. Cue end of Season 5.


	10. Startling creatures

Chapter 9

Startling creatures

"Willow? Willow?" Buffy called, running through the cemetery. They had reached the supposed site of the crypt, only to find it gone, a large patch of undisturbed grass in its place instead. Walking on the grass was possible, so it hadn't been illusion… now they'd left Anya to watch the spot, and Buffy and Giles split up to comb to cemetery. They'd started off by calling the Summers house with Anya's mobile, only to find no one was picking up – so Xander had run off to check the house with Buffy's keys. On arriving there, he'd found no one in, and had called Anya back. Still, he stayed in the house in case Willow arrived there.

Spike hadn't been able to follow – due to the sunlight, and had agreed to stay in the Magic Box to offer what help he could. When they were leaving, she'd heard the crash of someone exiting the shop with great speed, and she dimly hoped Constantine was okay.

There were no crypts that resembled the one Willow had described to her, and she was convinced that somehow, the patch of grass was all that was left of the actual crypt. Her best friend hadn't had any reason to lie, had she? 

No, she couldn't believe that Willow would lie to her about this. Frustrated and angry, looking in every likely crypt she came across, she let the emotions override her fear for her sister's safety. She had to believe that Constantine could hold whatever was happening until Willow could be found. She had to believe that Willow had the solution. She had to.

Denizens of the crypts she invaded to check for the dark elf took one look at her face, flushed with fury, and decided to let the Slayer take her look around without making comment.

Farther away, Giles wasn't having much luck either, though his progress was slower, he was no less meticulous. He didn't understand a lot of what was going on – why Dawn was the Key, why the crypt had gone, why the ritual seemed so bizarre. Technically, this last wasn't too surprising, since in his long stint as a Watcher to Buffy, and even after when he was fired by the Council but continued as an unofficial Watcher, he had seen extremely strange events. 

He finished his section of the cemetery and hurried back to the patch of grass, only to find Buffy already there and hopping around in frantic agitation. "Giles?" 

He shook his head, and her face fell. "This must have been the place."

"Then what now?"

Giles cursed himself for neglecting his own study of magic as he realized how much the gang had relied on Willow for it, and he also cursed himself for not having Willow's telepathic powers. "Er… er… we have to call Willow. Magically. I… I want all of you to sit down and… and hold her in your minds. Grounding memories of her here might help in locating her." At least, he hoped that would work. Sympathetic magic was a nuisance to get right.

**

Constantine was having problems. Synchronicity wasn't working at its full strength as it had in Toril, so he wasn't able to use it to dodge hits, and had to rely on his own, slow human responses. He was quite sure his left arm was broken, and some ribs were at least cracked. If not for Meri he probably wouldn't be able to get up and walk as she shunted the pain off somewhere temporarily – he hated the sound of that word – and so far he could sense that the Goddess was getting stronger. The blood from Dawn had formed the outline of the Gate – about the size of a normal doorway – and was continuing to fill it out. Constantine felt sure that if the Gate was totally colored out, then the actual avatar of the Goddess would come out – and then, he would have to hope to die.

: _Damn this. Meri… can you call Jarlaxle? He still owes me a favor, so… _: Constantine doubted that there was time to set up the ritual proper, something which involved a protective circle drawn with chalk that was supposed to be mixed in the blood of virgins, candles, and a bit of posturing. He didn't think the shop had said chalk, and also didn't think he'd have time to draw the circle properly, even if he didn't try to bind Jarlaxle… 

: _Knowing Jarlaxle, he might just decide that getting you back to your world would have had repaid the favor. However, I'd try, but I'd have to leave you for a minute – Jarlaxle just put up anti-summoning blockages around his Plane, so I'd have to visit it personally. Can you survive for a minute? It'd be a hassle to find a new host on an unfamiliar world. _: Meri seemed to smirk at him.

: _At the most I'd bloody well just run away, luv. _: Constantine pointed out, hoping that he would be allowed to, : _And hope it takes more than a friggin' minute for the gate to open. _:

There was a snarl from inside the shop, and a crash. Constantine got to the doorway, and saw Spike dodging balls of fire. The shop was in flames now, except for a five-metre radius around Dawn and the Gate. The panther, having heeded his call for help, was also providing a moving target to distract Dawn-Lloth, who had temporarily forgotten about Constantine. Grimacing, he decided to leave them to it and sneaked back outside to sit down painfully – all his wounds were giving him hell now as Meri left to get Jarlaxle. Closing his eyes, he listened to the curses and the growls from inside the burning shop, assuring his battered conscience that in his current state, crawling inside the shop to engage in feats of bravery would be worse than useless. At least they were still alive.

**

"Bloody hell!" Spike cursed, as a bolt of fire caught him in the side like a hit with a hammer, spinning him onto the ground. Frantically, he rolled, trying to put out the flames, and was, for the first time since he'd given it to her, thankful that Buffy had his coat. If he had wheedled it back from her, it would have been in a sorry state by the end of this.

From what he could see, Constantine was out of it, so it was just him and Constantine's panther. The creature was incredibly fast, but the first time it got engulfed by flames, it had emerged unscathed. This seemed to infuriate Dawn-Lloth, and so she was concentrating her attention on the panther – not that she didn't occasionally take shots at him.

He wondered why she was doing this. It wasn't even as if he and one panther had the ability to stop her from forming the portal, so why didn't she get on with it first and then squash them later?

The answer, Spike realized, as he ducked another small fireball, was in her expression. She delighted in cruelty, even petty cruelty like this, expending he precious energy trying to wear them out and burn them alive, as well as the chaos this created. Her role as a bloodthirsty Goddess of chaos, as described earlier to the Scooby Gang by Constantine, was all that she knew how to play, and it seemed that the role had consumed her to an extent that she did what she would have been expected to do – try and kill them – before other, more prudent things. It was quite frightening to realize – that all that Lloth was – was what others had made and expected of her, and for a moment Spike felt compassion for this creature caught in a web of belief. 

Dawn-Lloth saw his pity, and shrieked in sudden rage, as she seemed to realize what he had understood of her, an unanticipated epiphany that shook her world into shards of anguish, the anguish of an animal caught in a cage without any hope of freedom. The glass windows splintered outwards with tinkling crashes, and Spike was slammed against the wall, caught up in a wave of unseen energy. His head hit something with a loud crack, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

**

Nalfein lay with his eyes closed on the bed of heavy quilts which had served as his bed ever since he had come to this new earth, though he was not asleep as his lover was, cradled in his arms. The mage watched his beloved's friends try to fight against the Breaking and the ascendance of Lloth, and felt amusement mingled with sorrow and anticipation. Amusement at their seemingly pitiful attempts to stop a Goddess – it was quite obvious even from the Wizard's Eye that Lloth was but toying with them. Sorrow at his beloved's reaction if she knew that her friends had died while she was not there to bravely – but foolishly – try to join and help them. Anticipation at the prospect of having her solely to himself when her world ended in fire and tears.

He considered alternatives. Now that he had removed the crypt to the void between planes he was relatively free to move it to others. He could invent excuses – someone had set off certain wards, something had gone wrong – he need not tell Willow what had happened on her world to necessitate a removal – and in time she would accept it, happy in her ignorance. He could even engineer a move to a plane like hers where she had never existed, such that she was free to rebuild friendships and believe that it was the same earth, just that there were some magical problems. That was one problem with using magic – one tended to see the causes and solutions of problems solely in magical terms without considering other options.

However, if by some happy chance her friends actually managed to extricate themselves from the Breaking and save their world – then he supposed he would return them there. If need be he would simply openly take all the blame for their disappearance, confident in the knowledge that he could effect it such that Willow would not reject him because of it for very long. 

"Willow? Willow?" A stuttering, faraway human male voice echoed around the crypt. "Are you there?"

Nalfein frowned, and activated one of the spying spells he had set near the last location of the crypt with a thought. More of Willow's friends – engaged in some sort of spell, no doubt the one that actually managed to call her from this far. He applauded their perseverance with the contemptuous amusement of one much more superior on the magical scale.

"Willow?" the voice grew louder. His beloved murmured in his arms, stirring, and he quickly cast a spell of sleep on her. Anxiously, he listened until her breathing calmed again, and then he carefully laid her onto the quilts and sighed. The voice was getting annoying. 

"Willow? Buffy, Anya – you have to help me call her… I think I'm… we're close."

Nalfein rolled over gracefully and picked up his staff, which was next to the quilts. Much as he disliked having to get up from his bed at this point in time, he had to direct the mental calls of Willow's friends elsewhere. It was improbable that they had enough power to break his spells on the crypt and forcibly bring it back, but they might be able to project information to Willow – which would be inconvenient. 

Behind him, Willow continued to sleep peacefully, unaware of the circumstances that had befallen her friends.

**

Meri took the form of a hawk-sized version of her true form and flew quickly through the Planes of Hell, ignoring its denizens and reveling in her power, bright, long blue plumes of flame trailing behind her like a comet's tail. Here on the Otherworlds, if unchained to any hosts as she was now, her power was considerable, and none of the demons wished to pick a fight. Those in her way got out of it as if they had intended to do so, and glared at the fast-disappearing streak of blue fire with envy and hatred. To exist even for a while on a Material Plane was to taste, for even a moment, the elixir of true life, and although Meri's power was lessened when she was on the same plane as a host, she felt it was worth it. Even if the only life she could experience then were stolen sensations from the host, always a mortal through whom she could not channel her full power, or risk her host's destruction. 

She swept on and finally entered the vast plane that was her destination.

It had changed considerably. The city of this Plane seemed to have been rebuilt into the likeness of a drow city – slender, beautiful, dark architecture wreathed in faerie fire, domes, spires, towers, pyramids, arches, castles, squat houses, snaking walls, uneven alleys. From this height, the multitude of denizens appeared to resemble tiny dots of black ants. For a moment Meri hesitated, wondering if she had accidentally flown too far and through the Planes to the Underdark of Toril instead, until she looked beyond and around her, at the dark red, barren wasteland of the outskirts.

Resolutely, she flew on over the walls. Drow-like sentries with leathery dragon's wings flew up to challenge her – then hesitated and turned away, deciding not to look for trouble. Still, she approached one of them. "Where is Jarlaxle?" she snapped. 

"The temple," the 'drow' replied. Meri nodded curt thanks.

The temple was an incongruous, mismatched building in the midst of such elegant architecture. Meri realized that it seemed to have been based on several buildings called 'churches' on Constantine's world that she had seen in his thoughts, vague and half-remembered images. Bells of different sizes and shape began to sing in a relatively pleasant carillon as she approached on wings of flame, and she landed at the entrance, assuming the form of a dark elven female dressed in a blue gown of shifting blue colors.

When in Hell, do as the demons will.

The guards at the door admitted her, and she found herself in a high-ceilinged chamber with many neat rows of wooden benches to her left and right. She stood on a long tapestry with red as its predominant color, depicting the fall of angels from heaven, and she smirked to herself at the exquisite irony as she approached the altar of black stone and all the strange structures and sculptures behind it. Above it all was a finely crafted stained glass of a dark elf with two sets of wings, one set that of raven's wings, the other, black bat's wings. 

Jarlaxle sat at the first row of benches, feet up on the rail in front. He seemed to be reading a book resembling the Bible, and gave no indication that he had heard Meri's approach, though the phoenix knew better. The Demon Prince had not changed a single bit of his flamboyant appearance that he had worn when he was mortal and a dark elf. The wide-brimmed purple hat still sported three long diatryma feathers that draped over the bench behind. His ruby-red eye-patch covered one two perfectly sound eyes, and over his well-made leather jerkin, black boots, long gloves and muscled arms he wore a large and curious assortment of jewelry – necklaces, medallions, pendants, chains, bangles, rings, bracelets, armlets – that scraped and jangled against each other when he moved – or when he wished, were totally silent. His cape of shimmering colors flowed like so many frozen rainbows down his back to pool on the ground.

"Greetings, Prince Jarlaxle," Meri said, bowing, when she was within a respectful distance.

Jarlaxle got up from his seat with the grace of a cat, then perched himself on the railing, his feet now resting on the bench. "Greetings to you, Lady Meridian," he replied dryly. "What may I do for you?"

"Lloth the Spider Queen is set to open a Gate to Hell and enter the Material Plane, where she would… "

"I know," Jarlaxle interrupted. "There are several demons and gods who have attempted to do that."

"Well, for this one… "

"There are a few new rules on this Plane," Jarlaxle said with ironic awareness, "Not only in this city, but also for the Abyss here. Those who, without my leave, try to wander onto other Planes at this point in time will have their power confiscated and distributed to those who are still… loyal to me." 

Jarlaxle smiled at Meri's look of astonishment at his audacity that changed to an amused respect. "I see. More of your little games, Prince Jarlaxle?" She waved her hand at her surroundings.

"You wound me, Lady Meridian," Jarlaxle chuckled. "This is one of my steps towards evening up the score with the opposition, and you call it a little game?"

"Nevertheless, it is quite clever, though my host still cannot grasp its meaning."

"Your host? Ah, John Constantine," Jarlaxle mused. "I rather liked him."

"_Liked_, Jarlaxle?"

"Do not worry yourself – he still lives." Jarlaxle's smile now turned malicious. "I will allow Lloth until the final stages of the Breaking – and then I will take her power from her. That would be my revenge of her – of the society of her making which has given me so much pain when I was mortal." He added conscientiously, "A last reminder to her that even the smallest of pawns can overturn a Queen."

Without the power implied from the words, Meridian would have thought this announcement pompous at best, dangerously pretentious at worst. Now she watched with the disembodied admiration of a being far removed from the ageless struggle of the Heavens against the Hells at a new player's curious skill in the game, and wondered what her host would make of it.

"It is not long now," Jarlaxle said thoughtfully. "You might like to go back at this moment, for her unmaking will be rather explosive."

Meridian bowed, and backed out as quickly as possible. Soon she was flying swiftly back through the planes, cursing the teleport blocks on Hell, and hoping that she would be in time.

The atmosphere seemed to grow heavier as she neared the Material Plane.

**

"Finally!" Constantine muttered as again, around him, there flared the shape of a phoenix. Meridian quickly appraised him of what Jarlaxle had said, and he nodded. "We have to get Spike."

Quickly he got into the shop, allowed Meridian to use a wing to scoop up the vampire, then turned and ran for it, calling mentally for the panther to withdraw at the same time. Meri used him to cast a Globe of Darkness on the vampire's form, to avoid Spike from being incinerated by the sun. From behind him there was triumphant laughter, and then, as he reached the other side of the road and deposited the unconscious Spike in the shade of a building, calling off the Globe, a loud and powerful explosion that knocked him off his feet. "Bloody hell!"

Of the Magic Box and the few buildings around it, there was now only a smoking crater, in the middle of which was Dawn, unscathed and looking around with amazement. 

"Dawn? Luv?" Constantine called from the road, and she clambered out of the crater and ran to him in relief at hearing a familiar voice, though she stopped in horror when she neared them. Spike was badly burned; flesh blistered or blackening at portions, though his vampiric healing would suffice if he got some rest and blood. Constantine's arm drooped at an odd angle, and he touched his ribs gingerly, wincing.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice escalating an octave. "Where's Buffy? What happened to you and Spike? A demon?"

"Long story, luv – but they're safe," Constantine, wincing, reassured her. At least, he hoped so. Surely they wouldn't be so stupid as to try and attack a dark elven mage, would they? 

Dawn glanced back at where the Magic Box had been, then her hands flew to her mouth as she belatedly realized the full extent (to her) of what the crater meant. "Oh my god! Giles is _so _going to freak! _Please_ tell me it's not my fault!"

**

Nalfein was surprised – Willow's friends had prevailed, and Lloth had been driven off or even destroyed, making it safe for him to return Willow to her plane. He lifted the sleep spell from her and kissed her leisurely until he felt her respond and smile into the kiss. 

Pulling back he greeted her sleepy grin with a wink, then he leaned it and murmured into her ear, "You friends are waiting for you."

This took a few moments to sink into Willow's sleep-fogged brain, which Nalfein took advantage of to suck at her ear lobe, then Willow squeaked. "What! Oh… why didn't you tell me earlier?" 

"We were somewhat preoccupied," Nalfein chuckled at her when she blushed. Delightful. 

"How did you know they were… are they outside the crypt?"

"Spells led them to believe the crypt was not where they thought it was." 

"They must have been worried! What did you do that for?" Willow glared at him. 

"You look beautiful when you're angry." He bent forward to kiss her, but she ducked away. "Very well. Though I considered leaving the silencer spells off and allowing you to rouse the area with your cries… "

"Oh." Willow blushed again. 

"And then allowing any creature to happen along and try to check on… "

"Stop!" Willow was sure that the color of her cheeks would rival a tomato's hue. "I suppose we'd better go out and meet them."

"We?" Nalfein pretended surprise.

"Yeah." Willow smiled at him shyly. "I think it's about time they knew about us."

Somehow that gave him a mixed feeling of pleasure and disquiet. Her friends were sure to suspect other motives of him from keeping the crypt away – but dared he hope she was beginning to accept him fully? 

If she did discover the truth of the incident – well then, he would just have to make sure she would not. 

"Nalfein, where are my jeans?"

The dark elf lay on the quilts and chuckled, admiring the sight of his lover, distinctly underclad, muttering darkly to herself as she looked for clothes casually discarded in their tryst. 

Humans _were_ startling creatures.

--

Notes and References:

__

Synchronicity: I've never really understood this bit of Constantine's magic, but it seems that he uses synchronicity, also known as the synchronicity highway/freeway, and can somehow manipulate time and space such that if he wants to, he can skip himself from place to place with surprising speed. I.e. from several hundred miles away to an airport, get through customs without anyone checking him and so on. In the previous story 'Hollow Years', synchronicity and Toril (the world of the Forgotten Realms)'s magic were warring, so both occasionally surged to its full strength in Constantine. The full-strength synchronicity allowed him to engage in things like hand-to-hand fighting without getting hit once – as he would never be in the same spot for very long.

__

Jarlaxle and Lloth: Jarlaxle was born as a third son of the House Baenre, the top-ranking House of Menzoberranzan, which meant that he was supposed to have been given as a sacrifice to Lloth when he was born. Somehow, probably through the instigation of his Arch Mage brother Gromph, he wasn't – but he turned into a rogue drow, supposedly Houseless rogue who founded a largely-male mercenary band still occasionally downtrodden by priestesses. Jarlaxle does not seem to have as much of a hatred of Lloth and her priestesses as Zaknafein, a purported friend, but it is probably still there, as in the hearts of most males in a Lloth-dominated drow society. 


	11. Epilogue

Epilogue

Constantine absently fingered the stiff cast on his reset arm, and wished that healing spells were in as much abundance in this world as they were in Toril. He sat in the kitchen, watching Giles interrogate Willow and Nalfein. They had been at it for more than an hour already – Xander and Anya had left with Buffy and Dawn for ice creams, and Spike had, irritatingly enough, visibly begun to heal from his terrible burns, fortified with blood. He had hit up a fast friendship with the panther with remarkable ease, and was stroking it as it purred from its position on the kitchen table. 

"I bet five minutes," Spike said over the panther's bulk as he watched the interrogation with sardonic amusement. His wounds, though still rather grisly to look at, had already taken on the appearance of being fresh, healing scars, and in a few hours, would probably disappear altogether. Unfair.

"Five minutes?" Constantine wished that Buffy's house stocked beer. He was bored and tired, a situation in which being drunk might improve. Since Nalfein and Willow were occupying his sofa and Giles was sitting on the other two-seater, there was no place peaceful enough to sleep in the house, unless he counted going down to the basement to sleep on the hard floor. He didn't particularly want to use any of the upstairs rooms – unless invited, he usually felt like an intruder in them.

Willow had offered, but he declined. He had a feeling that she hadn't only been 'talking' to Nalfein in his crypt, and it was quite likely that they might go upstairs to do something more after Giles' lecture. In which case he would return to his sofa and sleep. Hopefully a silence spell cast on the living room would cut out any annoying noises.

"Before the elf snaps and zaps Giles with that stick."

Nalfein chuckled at that, and even Willow grinned. Giles sighed, and continued with his questioning. 

Spike smirked at the elf – he rather liked him, despite his calculating, Machiavellian, relatively self-serving nature in everything else save situations involving Willow. He wondered if the Watcher knew that Nalfein was actually subtly manipulating him – already he believed Nalfein's story that Willow had come to him, and he had moved his crypt elsewhere so they wouldn't be disturbed. The Watcher had also believed that Nalfein had nothing to do with the pendant suddenly being able to trigger the key without any components or rituals. After that, most discussion points were quite juvenile, but Giles had been carefully herded into a spot where he now believed that whether or not Nalfein had an intrinsically evil nature was the most important topic of debate. 

So far he had repeated his questions several times, due to the nature of Nalfein's helpful-on-the-surface, but nothing-in-depth answers. This had put Willow firmly on Nalfein's side as she thought that Giles was only trying to make trouble for Nalfein, whose artfully long-suffering expression was very ingenious. 

"Clever bastard," Constantine murmured, also having gathered as much from the conversation and his personal assessment of the dark elf. He glanced at Spike, and Spike shrugged – if Giles couldn't see that Nalfein was a hell of a lot smarter than anyone in this house and was simply toying with him verbally for fun, then it wasn't their problem. Willow seemed perfectly happy with the dark elf so far – even protective, when Buffy had confronted Nalfein about the pendant earlier – so they saw no reason to disturb that – Nalfein looked as though he was devoted to her. 

"Nalfein, or Jarlaxle?" Spike smirked. Meri had, with Constantine's help, explained everything to everyone to his or her satisfaction without her host falling asleep once.

"Both," Constantine shook his head, his eyelids feeling extraordinarily heavy, as was normal after an extended manipulation of Meri's power. "Dark elves."

Spike watched Constantine drop off to sleep, and patted the panther. "Just you and me left, eh?" 

As he listened to the panther's reassuring purr, Spike considered ways of getting his back on Buffy that wouldn't piss her off enough for her to return to her 'Spike is an evil scumbag', cold-shoulder attitude. It was quite unfair that although he would allow her to do anything to him, ever since she had changed his attitude towards him he'd felt as though he had been dumped on unfamiliar grounds with treacherous footings, and he'd been only able to _react_ to her. He considered taking a page out of Nalfein's book and gifting the Slayer instead of playing pranks – certainly Willow had seemed to react extremely favorably to that.

It did not occur to him that this might have been precisely why she changed her attitude. 

**

"…And if I ever find out that you've hurt Willow or any of us with… with malicious intent… "

"Then you may try to kill me," Nalfein smiled ironically at the stammering Giles. "That is only fair."

"Good." Giles said, adjusting his spectacles in imagined triumph, missing the implication that he might _not_ be able to kill Nalfein. In fact, he probably had as much chance of killing Nalfein in an outright confrontation as a normal ant had of killing a human armed with an Oxford dictionary. Willow fought to keep a straight face, though she understood that Giles was weary and the misunderstanding was not all his fault. "Willow, I am still not sure if this is actually um, very wise of you… "

"Well, Nalfein can teach me some magic too," Willow said, "And he doesn't take his magic from Gods, so… "

"There's Constantine."

"But I don't think he'd be staying very long," Willow pointed out, "He told me he would leave for a bit, then come back occasionally to check on us. He's not a very um, permanent person."

"I _heard_ that," Constantine muttered from the kitchen.

**

"Buffy, can I have my coat back?"

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"C'mon, Buffy… "

"No."

"What do you want for it?"

"I _love_ this coat."

"I'd buy you one that looks like it, luv."

"Buy it for yourself."

"Slayer!"

"Careful, Spike. I bet I can make you beg me to keep the coat."

"Oh really… Buffy! _Bloody hell_, woman, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, Spike?"

"_Bloody hell_…"

"You've got very strong handcuffs here, Spike. Wanna test their strength?"

"God, Slayer!"

**

"_That_ is Legolas?" Nalfein sounded extremely unimpressed.

"Yes," Willow, Buffy and Dawn were just about nearly drooling all over their seats. They'd gone to watch the Lord of the Rings again, after everything, though this time all the guys had declined to come along save Nalfein, who still wasn't sure how the large pictures on the screen moved, and didn't really want to know. "Isn't he gorgeous? The eyes… the long hair… "

"The way he draws the bow!" Buffy mimed the action.

"Did you see the part in Moria where he used the knives?" Dawn agreed.

"Or when he used the arrow to stab the orc later… " Willow took it up. They seemed to be doing this in some strange sequence.

"And the quiver! I like his quiver."

"The bracers… "

"He is _so_ gorgeous… "

"He should speak more… gah, stop showing Frodo already! Geez, that one freaks me out. The eyes."

"Or Aragorn, he looks like a walking haystack."

"Did you know Legolas was actually named Galdor in the first drafts of the book?"

"Really? Well, so long as he still looks this good… "

"Spike just bought me the books… ooh, look at him go."

Nalfein sighed as the three girls continued gushing over Legolas. As far as he could tell, they seemed to adore every part of the imaginary character right up to the boots, which were apparently 'cute', and the way he fought with knives, bows and arrows, which were apparently 'cool', though he could not see how that had to do with temperatures. Belatedly, he recalled the warnings from Spike and Constantine about following the girls to the movie, since they were all only going for the second time just to watch Legolas. The extent of their obsession had been quite clear when all three turned on Spike for repeating that Legolas was a 'pansy' even in the books as he screamed when the Balrog came – and then proceeding to use a girlish voice and quoting: "Ai, ai! A Balrog! A Balrog is come!"

Buffy had said that she thought Legolas was still cute, Dawn and Willow had agreed rather firmly.

He was beginning to get jealous.

**

"Are you leaving so soon?" Willow protested. Constantine leant on the doorframe, smoking, as Buffy, Dawn, Spike and Willow attempted to talk him out of it. 

"S'matter, luv?" Constantine raised an eyebrow. "You don't need me here any longer – you've got the elf for teachin' – mind you watch yourself with him – and now that Spike's moved in, the place is gettin' a bit too crowded."

"But I'm moving out… " Willow pointed out. Nalfein had somehow managed to get a terrace house in Sunnydale, a lovely place with shady trees, whitewashed walls, slate tiles, lavender bushes and a well-designed cheery interior of warm shades of brown. She had a feeling that both Constantine Spike had hands in this somewhere, but she was very happy – the new house was cozy, and gave the both of them the privacy that was sometimes lacking in Buffy's house.

"Yeah, Spike moved in," Constantine grinned.

"But I sleep in the basement," Spike said, putting his arm around Buffy and smirking at her. "Usually."

Constantine snorted. "That's another problem. The two of you – it's amazin' that Dawn gets _any_ sleep at all." Dawn snickered at this.

"We _try_ to be quiet!" Buffy insisted. "It's just that Spike can't seem to stop making noises."

"If I remember last night, luv," Spike drawled, "I wasn't the _only_ one makin' noises. Especially when I… "

"Shut up," Buffy glared at him.

"Make me."

"No sex for you tonight."

Spike smirked. "Bet you can't keep your hands off me."

Constantine exchanged sympathetic looks with Dawn, who rolled her eyes. Then she returned to the subject. "Um. You will visit often, right?"

"Yeah… keep you lot out of trouble and all." 

"You really want to go?" Willow sighed. 

"I need to check up on things in London, luv… don't worry, the cat'd be around to bleedin' mother me. As always." The panther, sitting patiently at John's feet, purred at his mention of it.

"Good bye," Buffy smiled. "And thank you." 

As Constantine strolled off down the road, the panther padding on in front of him, he reflected on how 'thank you' was probably the phrase he heard least of all in any sort of dealings he was involved in. 

He rather liked it. 


	12. Outtakes Part 1

Outtakes 

Part 1

These bits of the story are rather irrelevant and only written for my own amusement. There is a high chance that they wouldn't even be counted as humor under any rational measurement, or that the characters will not act as they do in canon. The inspiration for the Outtakes chapters was begotten after I read the Sailor Moon/Hellblazer crossover – I can't remember the author's name, but the 'fic is in the Vertigo section of the Comics part of fanfiction.net. Go and read – it's much funnier than my 'fics, even though yes, it's a Sailor Moon crossover. John Constantine accidentally gets a wand that turns him into Sailor Hellblazer, a girl. Heh.

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Buffy realizes her feelings for Spike.]

"Spike! You pig! How dare you eat all my chocolate chocolate chip Haagen Dasc ice cream! I'm going to kill you!" Buffy snarled, whipping out a stake from wherever she conceals them in her tight clothing.

"I'd buy you another one, luv." Spike cautiously got a table between him and the enraged, ice cream deprived Slayer. Come to think of it, eating the Slayer's ice cream as a sort of payback for her getting his coat didn't seem to be a very good idea. Besides, the resultant sugar high was doing funny things to his brain.

Absently, he dodged a hurled stake.

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Buffy finds out about Connor, Angel's son, whom he had with his vampire sire Darla. This ridiculous 'twist' is actually in the show – I mean, how can _vampires_ have children?]

"You _what_?" Buffy's knuckles whitened over the 'phone as she spoke to Angel. 

"I'm very sorry, Buffy… but yes, I had a son with Darla." Angel's normally smooth voice was broken with the guilty regret that again, he was causing Buffy pain.

"I know about that! Why are you calling him _Connor_? What kind of name is Connor?"

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Dawn goes out on her first date. Everyone else panics.]

"You know, Dawn, I have a feeling something's watching us," Michael, the extremely cute guy from the next class whom Dawn still couldn't believe had asked her out to a movie, said sheepishly.

Dawn looked around. "Well, I don't see anything."

"Yeah, it's probably just me being nervous." Michael smiled a little shyly. "You're beautiful."

Dawn blushed. "Thanks. You look good too."

"Which movie are we watching?"

Behind them, invisible, the Wizard's Eye floated.

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Another of Willow's spells goes off accidentally.]

"Oops." 

Nalfein sighed, trying to gather patience. He now looked like the spitting image of Legolas. "Willow… "

"I'm sorry!"

Actually, Nalfein reflected, Willow didn't seem particularly contrite.

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Buffy agonizes over whether she should accept Spike. Insert angst.]

Buffy sat in her bedroom, counting on her fingers. "Bad things: he's an undead vampire, he smokes and he still professes to be evil."

"Good things: My first love was a vampire, normal guys have a problem with my strength, Spike doesn't smoke in my presence, and Nalfein is supposedly more evil, but he makes Willow happy. Spike is a good kisser, great in bed, he buys stuff for me, he treats me like an equal, that chip in his head prevents him from hurting people, he promised he'd never leave me, he gets on well with Dawnie, we can patrol together, he isn't afraid to speak what's on his mind, he's so sexy in leather – or in nothing at all – those blue eyes are beautiful, we have a lot in common, mom used to like him… and, he's made it quite clear that I own him as much as one person can possess another." Buffy sighed. 

"What a choice."

[insert sarcasm]

**

[Fanfic Cliché: A New Evil in Sunnydale]

All of them looked at the poster. It was one of many that had been springing up around Sunnydale, like some sort of colorful paper plague. 

"I can't bloody believe it," Spike said, finally.

"Britney Spears! Here!" Buffy muttered. "Oh god!"

"You know what this means, Buff," Xander drawled, then did an extremely bad parody of Britney Spear's routine, gyrating his hips. "Ooh I did it again, you know what ah feel… "

"Stop it, Xander," Dawn giggled. 

"What can we do?" Willow asked. Nalfein's expression spoke plainly – the elf had no idea what was going on, and had actually been wondering what Willow would look like in the extremely skimpy outfit the girl in the poster wore.

"Demons in the audience," Spike said promptly. "At best they'd just eat some of her fans. Less of them the better."

"Spike!" Buffy glared at him. "Eating people is bad!" she paused. "Even Britney fans."

"Silence spell," Constantine suggested. "And make it permanent." He snorted. "'Least she's given up on sellin' her bleedin' 'I am a virgin' image. Friggin' ridiculous, that one, with all the clothes she wears."

"What clothes?" Spike smirked.

"Exactly!"

**

[Fanfic Cliché: A Stranger comes with a Warning.]

Constantine opened the door, and came face to face with the Phantom Stranger. "Bloody hell! Not you again! What is it now?"

The Phantom Stranger, unruffled, began to speak. "Constantine, you have been warned: an ounce of chocolate is poison to dogs." With that, he stepped back, and vanished.

Constantine blinked. "What the hell was _that_ about?"

**

[Fanfic Cliché: AU characters meet.]

"This is the hundred-and-twenty-first meeting of Jarlaxles Anonymous," the Jarlaxle who sat at the head of the black oval table said, tapping his fingers on the glass table sheath in emphasis. "Today, we'd like to congratulate Jarlaxle-eight on becoming a Demon Prince of Hell."

The other Jarlaxles clapped politely in a rattle of jewelry, while Jarlaxle-eight stood up and bowed gracefully. 

"We'd also like to wish Jarlaxle-ten the best of luck in his ventures on the Dow Jones, his continued striving for world domination, and in the monopoly court cases involving his company Microsoft." 

Jarlaxle-ten, who looked like a human in a business suit and with spectacles and short-cropped hair, reached to his eyes and seemed to move something. The image of a human melted away to reveal his true form – a smirking dark elven mercenary leader, his eyepatch on his right eye now.

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Mary Sue/Author Avatar.]

Constantine had known someone had been following him for a while. He'd even managed to get a glimpse of her, something not very difficult, as she made no attempt to conceal herself. She was a rather short girl of Chinese appearance, aged perhaps around fifteen to seventeen – shoulder-length black hair that looked uncombed and rather tangled, with stray strands sticking up in the air, a face that could not be called pretty even if one tried to be generous, nose a bit flat, lips a little too thick, dark eye bags that spoke of too many late nights surfing the Net.

Now, where had that last bit of information come from?

Her skin was pale and not tanned, and she was very thin, nearly painfully so. Flat-chested, with shorter hair, she could probably pass for a boy. Spectacles crept slowly down her nose as she ostensibly looked into a shop window. She walked without any grace, and if there was a word for her, it would be 'vague'. 

Constantine shook his head, mildly astonished. What was this girl doing out of school?

[ah, brutal reality.]

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Angel confronts Buffy about Spike.]

"What do you mean, I shouldn't be seeing Spike?" Buffy growled. 

"Buffy… "

"While _you_, of course, can sleep with Darla _and_ have a child with her _and_ sleep with Cordelia. Right… which century did you leave your brain in?"

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Killing the Slayer.]

Two vampires lay on top of a crypt, watching as, some distance away, Buffy and Spike patrolled. One of the vampires was sighting down a sniper rifle, while the other vampire was using the scope and giving directions.

"I wonder why we've never thought of this," the sniper-rifle-vampire muttered under his breath.

Suddenly, stakes fell out of the sky and impaled them through their hearts, turning them into dust. The stakes were marked 'No Buffy – No more show'.

Buffy and Spike turned in the distance of the short screams, saw nothing, and shrugged philosophically. 

"Want to check it out?" Spike asked, as they strolled along.

"Probably just the wind."

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Some characters are moved to the 'real' world.]

"What do you mean Nick Cage is playin' me?" Constantine growled.

The director of the upcoming Constantine movie cringed behind his desk. "Well… Mr. Cage is a good actor… "

"He isn't bleedin' good lookin'! Do you think he friggin' _looks_ like me, you berk?"

"No…"

"Right. I'm goin' to kill him now. Pick another friggin' actor. And when I come back I want to see your bleedin' plot _fixed_. I'm not a bloody New Yorker!"

[complaining about JC's character in the Constantine movie that'd be filmed soon being Nicholas Cage]

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Movie Parody.]

"Choose a pill – the red one, or the blue one."

"What?" Constantine stared at the man in a black leather duster not unlike Spike's. He had dark skin, and was bald – Constantine had encountered him in the street, and was wondering how much crack the man had smoked. Probably more than a few pounds, if the conversation that the man had struck up with him had been anything to go by.

"The blue pill will show you the real world, the red one will cause you to forget."

Constantine sighed, and wished for a moment that his life didn't involve him running into so many seriously fucked-up people. 

**

[Fanfic Cliché: A character gets stuck on another world and gets into romantic situations with a popular character from that world.]

"I'm friggin' _straight_, you wanker!" Constantine yelled down at the elf. He'd managed to get onto an outcrop on a more-or-less sheer cliff with Meri's help, and he had no idea how he was going to get out of _this_ mess.

On the other hand, if he ever managed to get back to his world, he could tell the girls that the object of their crush was even more handsome in 'real life' than in the movie.

"Meri!"

The phoenix laughed at him as the elf rather nonchalantly began to scale the cliff as easily as if he had been born with a lizard's grip. 

[response to the incredible number of slash pairings in the LoTR Fanfic.net section]

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Buffy and Spike get on with it in an abandoned building.]

"Slayer, 'Queld' is not a word."

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Is not."

Spike saw the point between Buffy agreeing to play Scrabble with him in the abandoned building near the Magic Box – it was far, far away from any decent dictionary. 

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Willow turns evil.]

"Willow!" 

Willow had 'accidentally' cast the spell that made Nalfein look like Legolas again. 

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Willow smiled wickedly. "Stay there. I've got my camera this time!"

"Camera?"

"Um yeah, it um, makes flashes of light to um, allow people to see better. Do you mind taking off your clothes?"

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Spike is somehow unable to be hurt the normal vampire way.]

"Where's Spike?" Buffy asked Dawn curiously. 

"Where else? The beach, sunbathing," Dawn rolled her eyes. "Ever since the miracle happened, he's been working on his tan. Seems to think it'd make him look better."

Buffy privately thought that Spike took some sort of perverse pleasure to exposing himself to things that would normally have killed him. He wore a silver pendant of a cross around his neck, and he bathed in holy water now. 

He probably got off on it.

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Cordelia gets a vision. Stuff happens.]

The 'phone rang, and Buffy answered, "Hello?"

Cordelia's voice sounded excited. "Buffy? I just had a vision, and… "

"Don't tell me – another evil coming to Sunnydale? One of us dying?"

"No, I just saw a lot of demons in some sort of concert… "

Buffy blinked, put the phone down, and yelled, "_Spike_!"

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Buffy somehow appears in ages past and finds a pre-vampire Spike.]

"Buffy, you look beautiful," Spike gaped. Buffy wore Victorian dress, the maroon satin flaring out from her waist over the cage and petticoats underneath. Buffy grimaced, not liking the corset, and wondering how the Slayers of old managed to do their job in these contraptions. 

"We have to pick up Willow and Nalfein for the Renaissance festival," she reminded Spike as she followed him to the car. 

"Your carriage awaits, madam," Spike bowed, opening the door of the DeSoto for her. Actually, their clothing wasn't strictly Renaissance period, but then, he doubted everyone would be accurate. Nalfein, for example, was going in his ceremonial robes, to try and pass for a court wizard.

"Well, you look good too, my Lord," Buffy grinned at Spike. His hair was not gelled up and dyed as usual, and the light brown fringe flopped over his eyes. Adorable in black doublet and hose and a wide-brimmed hat adorned with two crow's feathers, an elegant rapier hung at the hip.

Spike chuckled at her. The day at the festival promised to be fun, even though it was being held in LA and there was the chance that Peaches would show up.

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Buffy comes back wrong. Insert angst.]

Buffy looked at herself in the mirror and shook her head in resignation. Anya had been right – the black skirt, now that she had come home and had the time to look at it long and properly, did not match with the red blouse.

"Bloody hell," she muttered, unconsciously using one of Spike's favorite phrases.

Well, there was nothing to it – she'd just have to hope that the blouse and skirt matched with some other bits of her clothing. Hopefully, Dawn wouldn't notice that she bought the two at first for a matched set, or she'd willingly die and go to… wherever people went after death… and they'd have to pull her back if they wanted to.

**

Author's note and warning: The next part of Outtakes is likely to be NC-17, unless I get more inspiration for Outtakes… so far I don't find it funny at all. Eh well.


	13. Outtakes Part 2 [NC-17]

Outtakes

Part 2

Warning: This particular chapter is NC-17 for sexual situations, to fulfill some reader's requests, and also for my own amusement. What else… ah yes, this is my first time writing an NC-17, therefore, do try not to laugh outright to my face if I get some things wrong (innocent look). This is a result of reading _far_ too much of a certain type of fanfic. Hopefully this 'fic won't get _too_ strange (read: kinky), or I'd have nothing to fill up a Winter/Jarlaxle story with. [insert evil laughter] 

**

[Fanfic Cliché: Some characters have not-very-believable sex without a hell of a lot of reason. Sounds a bit like real life (doing things without extremely solid reasons, that is. Heheh.) What other cliches present in the story… ah yes, Spike knowing a miraculous number of helpful people.]

**

"_And_ they bought _orange_ Milanos!" Willow continued on her rambling, excited catalogue of the new house, which had been a concerted effort on the part of Constantine and Spike. The vampire in particular seemed to know a remarkable number of people – creatures, to be precise – who were useful in these matters. 

Nalfein followed, rather bemused, in her wake as she bustled from room to room, touching, examining, vocally describing – it was like watching some sort of physical manifestation of a Clairvoyance spell gone strangely, exuberantly wrong. He had heard once that many elves were attracted to humans because of their energy – and he could vaguely see why. It was like watching a powderkeg dance around the room, trailing sparks of random dialogue, effervescent, positively rather exhilarating to experience – in more ways than one. 

Willow waved a cookie at him before popping it into her mouth and then opening the icebox – _refrigerator _– to look at the contents, occasionally making little muffled exclamations of delight, then closing the main door and opening the smaller, adjacent frozen-section door next to it. Bent over, one slender hand on a knee with the other wrapped over the handle, her pert rump wiggled in the air, the short blue skirt riding up to reveal more leg, though not enough to see her underwear. Nalfein felt a slow smirk curl the sides of his mouth as he sidled behind Willow noiselessly. 

"… And ice cream… " Willow felt a hand wander up her left inner thigh, lazily massaging, and jerked away, shoulder hitting the cold surface of the 'fridge, cheeks flushing. "Nalfein!"

Nalfein flashed her an impudent, sexy grin, then crowded her against the 'fridge, closing the frozen-section door by nudging it close with his dragon-staff. He nipped and sucked at her neck with an agonizing, mock lethargy, all the while using his free hand to slowly push up her skirt. Willow let out a soft moan and tangled her fingers in his hair, then remembered what she had been doing and shoved him away. "That's for later," she told him.

"And if I don't want to wait?" he purred.

Willow only hesitated for a second. "You still have to wait," she decided, then added a threat that Buffy had taught her. "Or, nothing later."

Nalfein pouted – an expression that looked quite adorable but also rather incongruous on the face of a two-hundred-fifty-year-old dark elven Mage Lord. Willow winked at him, and continued looking through what seemed to Nalfein like every single piece of inventory in the kitchen, then he followed her out to the living room, his good-humor restored as he watched the skirt. Suede leather and a very light brown, it was several tones darker than her skin – but enough to wire Nalfein's brain down several imaginative routes in which Willow was only wearing her blouse. Or less, if he had his way later… 

Willow sat down on the color-coordinated sofa (she was willing to bet that the interior decorator was female) and switched on the television with the remote lying on the glass-surface coffee table. Nalfein sat down next to her, though he made no further attempts – a sneaked glance showed that he was feeling relatively resigned to the situation.

Everything seemed to have happened with remarkable speed. It'd been a few days, and she'd started from being an unstable, emotionally-lacking spellcaster to a more stable spellcaster with a boyfriend living on her own. Although Willow couldn't reconcile the term _boyfriend_ to Nalfein – the connotations of clumsy gropings and awkward liaisons didn't seem to fit the dark elf, who always seemed to exude some sort of quiet confidence. He probably fit the term _lover_ more, though the term appeared to imply that all their relationship was about was sex. 

Was it? Had she actually descended to such a level? Willow watched the garishly-colored cartoons prance across the television screen and remembered a time when she'd confidently stated that she'd only sleep with someone she loved and who loved her back. She was fairly sure that Nalfein loved her – spell or no spell – but as to the other part of the equation? Was she just using Nalfein for gratification, or was there a chance that she was beginning to love him?

Nalfein muttered something under his breath and closed his eyes, apparently not wishing to watch any more of the cartoons. Willow liked the way his head tipped forward slightly when he relaxed this way, liked the way his silvery hair spilled over his ears to ebb down his neck and chest, liked the way the dark, pointed ears peered out of the silvery curtains, liked the maybe-a-smile-maybe-not, nearly unnoticeable curl to his mouth. She liked the lean, muscled body with its interesting scars from magical accidents – healed burn marks, bite marks – the long-fingered, perfectly shaped hands, the graceful ankles, the gasps and moans and curses when they… 

Willow looked away, blushing. Any prolonged study of Nalfein always ended up with her thoughts wandering back to sex. It probably wasn't very… healthy.

It took some effort for her to locate her previous train of thought as she watched the cartoon. Did it actually matter if she was using him, if Nalfein seemed to enjoy it and certainly was the one who actively started it most of the time? Or could it be termed _using_ in that sense? She was certainly fond of him and his curious, strong personality, though using _love_ was still not entirely correct.

Nalfein seemed to be asleep, though with the weird elven idea of sleep (some sort of trance) she wasn't particularly sure. Nevertheless, she turned off the television and stood up as noiselessly as possible so as not to awake him – and Nalfein grabbed her wrist, pulling her off balance. With a yelp, she fell back on the sofa, and there was a confused blur which eventually sorted itself into Nalfein kissing her slowly while he rubbed his erection between her legs, pushing up her skirt to form tight furls of cloth at her hips and waist. 

"Nalfein!" she protested half-heartedly, when he let her up for air. He smirked at her, then invaded her mouth again, smiling into it when she dug her nails into his shoulder as he slipped fingers into her panties. Willow's moans as he rubbed her clit were stifled by his mouth, then he withdrew, kneeling between her legs and raised one elegant eyebrow at her whimpers of protest. 

"Still for later?" he asked mischievously.

Willow opened her mouth, then closed it again, refusing to give him the satisfaction of triumph even though her body begged for it. She pulled down her skirt and sat up, pretending to tidy her hair as she got to her feet. "Later," she said, surprised that her voice was steady.

Nalfein's expression of astonished complaint was very gratifying, Willow thought as she went up the stairs to continue her interrupted explorations.

**

Looking at the pretty, white-marble tiled bathroom had been very pleasant. Fluffy white towels and a lingering scent of soap added to the mental list of things to thank everyone for that Willow made as she looked around, thanking all the Gods that she had such friends. Rubbing her feet on the fuzzy mat she continued to wander into the next room – a large study full of books. Nalfein forgotten, the late-afternoon sunlight drawing long shadows through the tall windows, she ran her fingers over the neat spines in the shelves, slowly looking through the selection, mentally picturing herself in the cushions at one of the corners or at the seat at the dark wood desk, curled up and reading. She almost began doing that before she remembered that there was one more door to look in, and regretfully put back a book on totemic magic.

The last room was a bedroom in pleasant light blue colors, neat dresser, an antique and charmingly out-of-place wardrobe, carpeted ground, a desk with two chairs and the four-poster bed with the white sheets that matched the wardrobe but not the room. _Quaint_ was a good word, or _archaic_… 

"Is it 'later' now?" Nalfein put his arms around her from behind and murmured into her ear, and she jerked in surprise – she'd never ever get used to how quietly he could walk. "I am becoming _impatient_, beloved." He emphasized 'impatient' by grinding his hips into her rump. 

"Um… " Willow pretended to consider. Nalfein growled, one hand undoing a strategic button on her blouse and slipping his hand in and under her bra to rub a breast, flicking at the nipple with a thumb. Willow gasped, nipples hardening at his attentions as he undid the rest of the buttons and removed both blouse and bra, licking the nape of her neck and the shoulders. 

"Now then?" Nalfein purred as he caressed his way down her ribs and stomach, then removed her skirt and pulled down her panties – Willow's mind becoming a little too fogged with desire and pleasure to object. 

"Y-yes…" The rest of Willow's acquiescence was lost in a sharp intake of breath as his fingers trailed down to the apex of her legs. It didn't seem to take too long for Willow, riding on crests of pleasure, to come around the two fingers probing deep inside her, and then Nalfein easily picked her up and dumped her on the bed, close to the edge, legs dangling over.

Automatic musings on whether or not the dark elf had used his innate levitation ability on her to accomplish that physical feat were dispelled when she watched Nalfein delicately lick his fingers clean, catlike, then kneel down on the ground between her legs, gently spreading them. She gasped at the feel of his tongue on her in lazy strokes, which eventually quickened and then began to investigate her depths as he sucked her folds, drinking her eagerly. As her incoherent exclamations and cries began to reach a crescendo he stopped, winking playfully as she protested – _again_, the bastard- and then began to remove his own clothing.

It was like watching a dancer perform – sensual, controlled grace - though it seemed to her that Nalfein was taking his time removing the complex folds of the robes, and folding it to place on the ground. Probably some sort of rebuke for her teasing earlier on, but she didn't particularly care, especially when he climbed onto the bed with her, gently nudging her up such that her head rested on the pillows at the centre, then shifting most of his weight on arms and elbows as he moved over her so as not to crush her. When they kissed she could taste herself, something that triggered a flood of guilty pleasure, a lot of it centered between her legs, and she grabbed at his head to deepen the kiss, rubbing a nail against the pointed ears.

Deciding to do some teasing of her own she managed to roll them over such that she straddled his waist while he grinned cockily at her from the pillows, perfectly happy to let her do whatever she wished to him – and the knowledge rather frightened her. She ignored the mouth that parted for a kiss and instead slowly licked her way down from his neck to his chest, ignoring the way he bucked underneath. He grasped her hips when she rubbed against him, pushing her insistently, but she swatted his hands away and sucked a nipple into her mouth, chuckling when he gasped in pleasure. After doing the same thing to the other side she moved on, dipping her tongue into his navel, then finally down to his erect shaft and running a nail up its length. 

Nalfein let out a growl of frustration when she ignored it and pulled up his legs from the bed, moving the feet closer to him to fold his legs up higher, then took little nips down the inner thighs, slowly, licking at the tender skin at the below the joint of the knee.. 

"Willow!" Nalfein begged now – a first, Willow counted, with a small burst of triumph. "Please!"

"Please?"

"Touch me… _please_."

"I _am_ touching you," Willow replied mildly, rubbing the skin between his legs.   
"… Higher… please, Red… " He gasped, bucking his hips in emphasis. Willow decided to give in to her darker urges and held down his hips, leaning her weight on it so he would not move. She'd read about something like this somewhere once, in accident, and had been wondering if it worked… Willow blew on the head of his shaft, shot him a sultry smile when she realized he was watching her hotly, then delicately dipped at the hole with the tip of her tongue. 

Nalfein's reaction was immediate and blurred – somehow Willow found herself on her back, the elf poised before her, his expression questioning, even though Willow knew that in forcing himself to wait for this he was torturing himself. This was something she liked about him – before doing it he always asked for permission, silently or otherwise, as if afraid of rejection. She was never really sure _why _he did it – it seemed so out of place with his normal confidence – but as with a lot of things about him, it was very arousing. As always, she gave the permission to him by pulling him down for another kiss.

Her fingernails bit into his skin when he moved into her, stretching her, their moans a discordant, primal harmony of fulfillment. Willow continued on her list of things she liked about Nalfein hazily as she wrapped her legs around him and moved against his rhythm so as to deepen the thrusts. 

The way he groaned and bit out words in the dark elven tongue each time he thrust into her, or when her nails scraped bloody trails down his back. 

The way he always seemed to try to start off slow, and then quickly lose control and start slamming into her, the kisses becoming frenzied, beautiful fingers scrabbling at the sheets, reaching towards ecstasy… 

The way he began to chant her name when he neared the edge, sprinkled with his language, musical, incoherent, magical, exotic and highly erotic – "…Ah, Willow… _mrimm d'ssinss_… _Quarval'sharess_, Red… _vith_… _a l'oloth, dos harventh ussa_… _harventh ussa_!" This last broke off into a strangled yell of pleasure mingled with pain when Willow bit hard on his neck with blunt teeth, and he came violently inside her, pulsing, and sent her off the edge as well, inner muscles squeezing him until he shuddered to stillness. 

Willow stared up into eyes curiously blank from satiation that took a moment to focus on her and soften – and she liked the way he smiled after sex, a slightly lopsided, endearing smile wiped clean of his normal unconscious arrogance and self-assurance, and she felt as though she looked into his soul.

Then the protective walls he built around him would go up again, and the smile would turn into a mischievous, self-satisfied grin, and though she'd mourn the loss of the unguarded moment she also welcomed this side of him back. It was so much easier to face, in a way. 

"One day your nails will stain as red as your hair," Nalfein was saying calmly, as he inspected the work her nails had done on his back with one hand, leaning on the other elbow. 

Willow blushed and stammered, "Well… "

Nalfein chuckled, and, still inside her – one of his peculiar preferences - rolled them such that they both lay on their sides, and he kissed her forehead, the gesture ironically chaste as he watched the sunlight that streamed in through the windows behind her with half-closed eyes. "_Oloth lueth chath wun l'solen d'l'Ssussun_," he muttered, then smiled enigmatically as if this statement amused him, before adding in a softer voice, "I love you."

Willow tilted her head up and saw the endearing smile again – and decided, at that moment, to accept his love and all that could, or would come with it, as she finally understood what it meant from him. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."

--

Translations:

__

Mrimm d'ssinss: lover (female)

__

Quarval'sharess: Goddess, (generic)

__

Vith: to perform sexual intercourse (slang)

__

A l'oloth, dos harventh ussa: By the darkness, you break me

__

Oloth lueth chath wun l'solen d'l'Ssussun: Darkness and fire in the eyes of the Light


End file.
